WASHINGTON – The US left the Paris accord yesterday, becoming the first country to ever withdraw from an international climate change pact, but Joe Biden vowed he will immediately return to it as president.
With election results pointing to a likely defeat for Donald Trump in Tuesday’s election, Biden took on the tone of a president-elect and made clear that climate is a top priority.
“Today, the Trump administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. And in exactly 77 days, a Biden administration will rejoin it,” tweeted Biden, who, if confirmed winner, will take the presidential oath on January 20.
He has proposed a US$1.7 trillion (RM 7.06 trillion) plan to take the US, the world’s second-biggest carbon emitter, to net zero by 2050.
Trump has aggressively championed the fossil fuel industry, questioned the science of climate change and weakened other environmental protections.
However, a report last month by the group America’s Pledge found that even without help from Washington, action from cities, states and businesses will still make it possible for the US to cut emissions by 37% by 2030.
Trump gave a one-year notice to leave the Paris accord on November 4 last year. Biden will need to officially notify the United Nations of the US’ willingness to return.
According to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in order to have a chance of keeping end-of-century warming below 1.5°C, global emissions need to reach net zero around mid-century.
The target warming level was chosen to avoid triggering a series of catastrophic climate tipping points that could force humanity to inhabit only the planet’s far north and south latitudes.
Niklas Hohne, a climate scientist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and a member of a simulation group called Climate Action Tracker, tweeted that “Biden’s climate plan alone could reduce temperature increase in the order of 0.1°C”.
“This election could be a make-or-break point for international climate policy. Every tenth of a degree counts.” – AFP, November 5, 2020
