President Joe Biden signs executive orders in the White House Oval Office in Washington, following his inauguration as 46th President of the United States, USA, on January 20, 2021.
Tom Brenner | Reuters
President Joe Biden signed an executive order to bring the United States together in the Paris climate deal on Wednesday, his first major action to tackle global warming by bringing the largest team of climate change experts of all time to the White House.
The Biden government also plans to cancel the license to build the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the U.S. and sign additional orders in the coming days to reverse several of former President Donald Trump’s actions that weaken environmental protections.
Biden promises to act quickly on action against climate change, and his inclusion of scientists across the government marks the beginning of a major policy reversal after four years of the Trump administration’s weakening of climate rules in favor of fossil fuel producers.
Almost all countries in the world are part of the Paris Agreement, the non-mandatory framework between nations to reduce their carbon emissions. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the deal in 2017.
Mitchell Bernard, chairman of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Biden’s order to rejoin the agreement makes the United States part of the global solution to climate change, rather than part of the problem.
“This is a quick and decisive action,” said Bernard in a statement. “This sets the stage for the comprehensive action we need to face the climate crisis now, while there is still time to act.”
With a lean Democratic majority in the Senate, Biden could achieve much of his ambitious climate agenda, including a $ 2 trillion economic plan to boost a transition to clean energy, cut carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 and reach net zero emissions by 2050.
During his first months in office, Biden is expected to sign a wave of executive orders to tackle climate change, including conserving 30% of America’s land and waters by 2030, protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge from drilling and restoring and raising the role of science in government decisions.
Some legal climate action will take longer, including the government’s plan to reverse a series of Trump’s environmental setbacks in the rules governing clean air and water and emissions for global warming. The Trump administration has reversed more than 100 environmental rules in four years, according to a Columbia Law School survey.
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“From Paris to Keystone to protect the gray wolves, these great first moves by President Biden show that he is serious about stopping climate and extinction crises,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, in a statement. “These strong steps should be the start of a furious race to avert catastrophe.”
The next major UN climate summit will take place in Glasgow, Scotland, in November. The countries in the agreement will give updated emissions targets for the next decade.
The deal’s goal is to keep the global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to pre-industrial levels. The Earth is expected to warm up to 1.5 C, or 2.7 F, in the next two decades.
Robert Schuwerk, Executive Director for North America at Carbon Tracker, said that returning to the agreement signals to global markets that the US will make combating climate change a priority, but added that it is only part of what the government should do to reduce emissions.
The USA is the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China. It is expected to have an updated climate target and a concrete plan to reduce emissions from the energy sector.
“Going back is just a gamble,” said John Morton, who was President Barack Obama’s director of energy and climate at the National Security Council. “The hard work of getting the country on track to become zero net emissions by the middle of the century begins now.”