A top US official abruptly left the Group of Seven (G7) environmental ministerial talks in Bologna on Sunday, just a few hours after it began. The unscheduled departure of Scott Pruitt, the head of the US's Environmental Protection Agency, was the talk of the first day of the two-day event, Xinhua reported.

There was no formal word on why Pruitt left the talks after participating in only a single negotiating session, posing for a group photo with other delegation heads, and holding one-on-one talks with his counterparts from Germany, Japan and Britain. In US media, it was reported that Pruitt was "summoned" by US President Donald Trump.