The new administration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has announced that it will reincorporate the United States into the Paris Agreement. The United Nations says they will facilitate such a rejoining after Donald Trump's administration withdrew the U.S. from the major climate agreement.
By Jose Diaz
Servindi, November 30th, 2020.- The United States is preparing for a historic transition period that will mark the end of Donald Trump's term and the beginning of the Democratic administration of Joe Biden, and thus a change in the White House's environmental policies is expected. One of the decisions anticipated to be reversed in early 2021 is the withdrawal of this country from the Paris Agreement.
During the campaign, the Democratic duo of Biden and Kamala Harris announced that in their eventual administration they would return the U.S.'s adherence to the world's most important climate agreement. This would represent the return of the White House to the international discussion forums on the fight against climate change and global warming.
Just a few weeks ago, when the vote count was not yet over, the U.S. made official its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, a decision that Donald Trump made during his first days in office back in 2017. Since then, the current U.S. president has deactivated many of the environmental policies formulated during the Barack Obama administration.
Although expectations are high, the more progressist wing of the Democratic Party is skeptical about Joe Biden's environmental commitment. For Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio Cortez, Biden's proposals on climate change were not sufficiently concerned with accelerating the energy transition and deactivating fossil fuel production.
U.N. Welcomes U.S.
Despite this lack of unanimity within the Democratic Party, the United Nations is already preparing for an eventual rejoin of the U.S. to the Paris Agreement, which needs urgent political impulse in the coming years, especially in the context of a pandemic.
The U.N. Executive Secretary for Climate Change, Patricia Espinosa, indicated that she is willing to facilitate the reintegration of the U.S. into the Paris Agreement. Espinosa reveals that the entry of the North American country is crucial for the revitalization of the agreement: "We will work with the new administration to give those signs of leadership that we need".
The new U.S. administration could submit its request to rejoin the agreement as early as January 20, when Joe Biden takes office as president, the U.N. has reported. Since that time, the rejoining process takes approximately 30 days so that by the end of February 2021 the U.S. could complete its rejoining of the Paris Agreement.
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