Biden announces the US to rejoin Paris Climate Agreement

Joe Biden, the president-elect of the United States, has made a statement this Saturday. Specifically, he assured that his country would be reintegrated into the international agreement on climate change in Paris, from the first day of his mandate, next January.  

After a three-year delay, in 2017, the US became the first nation in the world to formally withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. President Donald Trump announced that the country would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation.

Last week, leaders from 75 countries met without the US in a virtual Climate Ambition Summit. This marked the Paris accord’s fifth anniversary. The US’s absence underlined the need for more countries, including other major economies such as Brazil, Russia and Indonesia, to make new commitments on tackling the climate crisis.

Biden has volunteered to organize an extraordinary climate summit. The world’s major powers would be included and it would take place sometime in his first 100 days as president.

Biden declared that the United States would rejoin the Paris Agreement on the first day of his presidency. He also stated that he would immediately begin working with his counterparts worldwide to do whatever they can. This is including meeting the leaders of major economies for a climate summit within his first hundred days in office.

The Paris Agreement, he said, developed an unprecedented framework for global action to prevent potentially catastrophic global warming. It sent the signal that nearly 200 countries decided to work together toward a clean energy future.

US leadership is essential in climate action

Biden has recognized that the United States’ exit of the agreement “detracted momentum” to the initiative. We have not approached the courageous actions that we needed. That is why today we have no time to lose, he remarked.

The United States, he insisted, was essential for negotiating Paris and indispensable for implementing the agreement. Now, under the new administration, the United States will once again work with its partners around the world to guarantee the objectives of the agreement for the good of our families and future generations, he concluded.