Former Secretary of State John Kerry slammed President Donald Trump on Sunday for pulling out of the 2015 Paris Climate Accord.

The agreement between 196 countries aims to curb the impacts of climate change.

In an interview on “Meet The Press,” Kerry compared Trump’s pledge to “see if we can make a deal that’s fair,” to OJ Simpson’s famous 1995 pledge to find the person who killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Though Simpson was found not guilty by a jury in a criminal case, a judge in a civil case found him liable for Brown and Goldman’s murder, and many remain convinced that Simpson killed both at his home in 1994.

“He’s going to go out and find a better deal?” Kerry said. “That’s like OJ Simpson saying he’s going to go find the real killer. Everybody knows he isn’t going to do that because he doesn’t believe in it. Because if he did believe in it he wouldn’t pull out of Paris. American has ceded global leadership on this issue.”

The former secretary of state repeatedly criticised the president for failing to acknowledge the economic benefits of sustainable energy, and that climate change exists at all.

But he also argued that Democrats need to do a better job of convincing voters that green energy jobs can have a positive economic impact on the economy.

“There has to be far more focus on the economic message,” Kerry said, saying the US is putting itself at a competitive disadvantage in green technology sectors.

He added: “We do have to do a better job of pointing out to people who this is part of the economic future.”

Despite Trump’s claim that he would renegotiate a climate agreement, many countries immediately announced they would not negotiate another environmental treaty with the US.

The Paris agreement implemented a series of targets designed to limit the global average temperature, which proponents said could help halt the numerous impacts of climate change.

Trump argued earlier this week that the economic impact of the Paris agreement on American energy sectors was too great to risk action to curb emissions, a fact that many economists and major US companies pushed-back on.

Follow Business Insider Australia on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.