Joe Biden formally rejoins Paris Accord on climate change 4 years after Donald Trump pulled US out
Joe Biden has officially rejoined the 2015 Paris Accord aimed at tackling climate change, almost four years after Donald Trump pulled the US out of it. President Biden’s decision was revealed by his Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Friday.
Biden said afterwards: ‘We can no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change. This is a global, existential crisis. And we’ll all suffer the consequences if we fail.’
Blinken added: ‘The Paris Agreement is an unprecedented framework for global action. We know because we helped design it and make it a reality.’
The president made re-joining the agreement, originally signed by his former boss Barack Obama in 2016, a key election policy. A total of 189 countries signed the pact in 2016, after leaders agreed that global solidarity and collective action were required to combat the climate crisis.
Biden’s decision to rejoin was welcomed by other world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron tweeted: ‘Welcome back to the Paris Agreement.’
The president says he plans to invest $2trillion on clean energy technology over the next four years, while trying to move away from fossil fuels.
Biden says he wants to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity production by 2035, and claims the US could be carbon neutral by 2050.
Trump pulled the US out of the Paris Agreement after claiming it represented a ‘bad deal’ for the United States.
The former president positioned himself as a friend to the United States’ coal, oil and gas workers, and hailed his policies for making the US totally self-sufficient with energy production.
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