US President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord is "shameful" and a "major error", France's Laurent Fabius, who helped the negotiate 2015 deal, said Friday.

"This decision, this speech, is a shameful mistake, a major error," Fabius, the former head of the COP21, the UN's climate forum, told France 2 television. He condemned the "lies" put forward on the subject by Trump.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris climate accord, prompting a furious global backlash and throwing efforts to slow global warming into doubt.

The US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord is a global setback, but China, India and Europe are willing to step up their efforts to honour the pact, Chinese state media said Friday.

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced America's withdrawal from the Paris climate deal, signaling a policy shift with wide-ranging repercussions for the climate and Washington's ties with the world.

In a highly anticipated statement from the White House Rose Garden, Trump said the United States would abandon the current deal -- but was open to negotiating a new one.

The withdrawal of key players from the Paris climate deal would "complicate" implementation of the pact, the Kremlin said Thursday, as U.S. leader Donald Trump weighed up pulling out. 

China will "steadfastly" implement the Paris climate pact, Premier Li Keqiang said Thursday, urging others to do likewise, as US President Donald Trump was due to announce whether he will keep Washington in the deal.

"China will continue to implement promises made in the Paris Agreement, to move towards the 2030 goal step by step steadfastly," Li said in a joint press conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "But of course, we also hope to do this in cooperation with others."

Donald Trump has decided to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord, U.S. media reported Wednesday, as the president kept the world guessing -- saying an announcement will come in the "next few days."

The European Union moved Monday to crack down on emissions cheating after the Volkswagen "Dieselgate" scandal by giving the EU executive more powers to monitor testing and fine automakers.

G7 nations on Saturday were deadlocked over climate change as US President Donald Trump rebuffed pressure to toe the collective line in the club of powerful democracies.

Delegates from the Group of Seven leading economies said a closing summit statement to be issued later Saturday would acknowledge only that six members were committing to upholding the Paris climate accord on curbing emissions, while the United States continues to reflect on the matter.

Not even Donald Trump can stop the campaign to roll back climate change, Al Gore said Monday as the former U.S. vice president's sequel to Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" screened at the Cannes film festival.