One of Joe Biden’s first actions as president was to recommit to the Paris climate agreement, the landmark accord brokered by Barack Obama and spurned by Donald Trump. On Friday, the United States formally reentered the international partnership, with the president calling it the first step of many toward addressing the “global existential crisis” of climate change.
“It’s a good day in our fight against the climate crisis,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote Friday. “The work to reduce our emissions has already begun, and we will waste no time engaging our partners around the world to build our global resilience.” “No country can fight this fight on its own,” climate envoy John Kerry added.
Close to 200 nations have signed onto the 2016 accord, which aims to keep global warming below two degrees Celsius; the Obama administration, one of the lead negotiators on the agreement, had promised to cut U.S. carbon emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. But even though the agreement was non-binding, Trump, a climate change denier, called it unfair and withdrew the U.S. “We are getting out, but we will start to negotiate, and we will see if we can make a deal that is fair,” Trump said in a 2017 speech announcing his decision. “If we can, that’s great. If we can’t, that’s fine.”
Trump’s retreat was symbolic, both of his refusal to even acknowledge the climate crisis and of the U.S. withdrawal from its leadership role on the world stage. Re-entering the agreement is but a first step, but in doing so, Biden is sending a message that the U.S. will seek progress in addressing climate change and will reassert its commitment to international partnerships. “I know the past few years have strained and tested our transatlantic relationship, but the United States is determined—determined—to reengage with Europe,” Biden said in an address to the Munich Security Conference Friday.
“America is back,” he added. “The transatlantic alliance is back, and we are not looking backward. We are looking forward together.”
It will, of course, take more than returning to a non-binding agreement to re-establish the U.S. on the world stage, let alone to address a mounting crisis that requires fast and dramatic action, as Biden himself acknowledged in his speech to allies Friday. (While discussing the U.S. re-entry into the Paris accord, Biden announced a forthcoming Earth Day summit to put forth “more ambitious actions” to confront climate change.) Still, the move was welcomed by the international community, which praised it as a “very important” step in the right direction. “We hope they will translate into a very meaningful reduction of emissions,” United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday, “and they will be an example for other countries to follow.”
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