New Delhi, March 7 -- The rollback of pledges by a major economy can lead to missed global climate mitigation targets, but state- and municipal-level policies can still bear positive impacts, said Jim Skea, chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Skea said that withdrawing from an agreement may not mean the country will stop all climate change mitigation activities.

"If they (countries) both leave the Paris Agreement and reduce their efforts, manifestly, it makes the targets, the goals, harder to reach, or other people will have to step in and do more," he said in an interview.

His comments come against the backdrop of president Donald Trump taking the US out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. ...