PM highlights EU-China cooperation on climate change

Prime Minister Juha Sipilä said on Thursday that the Nordic countries will demand the European Union (EU) take a leading role in combating the climate change and seek partnership with China for the task.

Sipilä made the remarks shortly before U.S. President Donald Trump announced decision to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement, a landmark global pact on fighting climate change.

Sipilä said on Wednesday that the possible U.S. withdrawal would be a major setback and partners must be found for continued work.

Outi Honkatukia, the Finnish chief negotiator in the Paris process, said that it was the global nature of the Paris agreement that all countries would act. She described the U.S. move as "disappointing and annoying."

The Paris Agreement of climate change, agreed on by almost every country in the world in 2015 after lengthy negotiations, aims to tackle climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and sets a global target of keeping the rise in the average temperature no higher than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.