`U.S. to Rejoin Paris Climate Agreement - Olive Oil Times
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U.S. to Rejoin Paris Climate Agreement

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Jan. 27, 2021 12:20 UTC

The United States under Joe Biden is on course to return to the Paris Climate Agreement of 2016, with the newly elected pres­i­dent sign­ing an exec­u­tive order to re-enter the pact after the coun­try had with­drawn from it a few months ago.

In 2017, the now-for­mer President Donald Trump had announced that the U.S. would exit the pact over wor­ries of under­min­ing the country’s econ­omy, a long process that was for­mally com­pleted last November.

The Paris Agreement is a legally bind­ing accord signed by 195 coun­tries world­wide aimed at tack­ling the global warm­ing effect by reduc­ing the emis­sions of green­house gases on the planet. The tan­gi­ble goal of the accord is to limit global tem­per­a­ture rise below 2 °C com­pared with pre-indus­trial lev­els.

See Also:Climate Change News

“Reaching net zero global car­bon emis­sions as early as 2050 will take a whole­sale trans­for­ma­tion of the global econ­omy,” John Kerry, Biden’s Special Climate Envoy, said. ​“All nations must raise ambi­tion together – or we will all fail, together. Failure is sim­ply not an option.”

Experts, how­ever, have warned that the path for the U.S. toward achiev­ing its cli­mate goals under the Paris accord is bumpy.

“It is going to take the entire gov­ern­ment, work­ing with the pri­vate sec­tor and the non-gov­ern­men­tal sec­tor, to attack this prob­lem,” John Podesta, Clinton’s admin­is­tra­tion chief of staff and adviser to for­mer President Barack Obama, said.

Among oth­ers, the U.S. will have to sub­mit a new Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) plan to illus­trate how the coun­try will reduce its gas emis­sions by 2030.

“The easy part is rejoin­ing Paris,” Alden Meyer, a senior asso­ciate with think-tank E3G, told the Financial Times. ​“The next step is putting for­ward an ambi­tious NDC for 2030, which has some real­ity to it for domes­tic action”.

The return of the United States to the Paris accord could also spark com­pe­ti­tion between the super­power and other sig­na­to­ries of the pact. EU offi­cials have expressed con­cern that the return of the U.S. will denote the bloc’s attempt to reduce its emis­sions within the accord require­ments.

“it is so good that Joe Biden has announced that the U.S. will rejoin the Paris Agreement imme­di­ately,” the European Commission’s pres­i­dent Ursula von der Leyen, said.

“But it is also a fur­ther rea­son for Europe to speed up its efforts, to get mov­ing and to keep the first-mover advan­tage,” she added. ​“This is impor­tant, so I like com­pe­ti­tion, it is good com­pe­ti­tion, it is pos­i­tive com­pe­ti­tion when it comes to the green econ­omy.”

The for­mal­i­ties of the U.S. rejoin­ing the Paris agree­ment are expected to be com­pleted in mid-February.

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