As promised, Joe Biden signed, Wednesday, January 20, on the first day of his mandate, a presidential decree announcing the return of the United States to the Paris climate agreement. The request was to be filed in the evening before the United Nations, which should allow the United States to become a party to the agreement again in thirty days.
The expected political gesture is spectacular, and marks the return of the United States to the concert of nations and their intention to fight against global warming. Donald Trump had for years minimized this disruption, even speaking in his 2016 campaign of “Hoax”. His country, given the deadlines imposed, did not actually leave the agreement until the day after its defeat in the presidential election on November 4, 2020.
“Welcome Back”, welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron. A comeback, but why make it, when the Paris agreement is not binding and the situation is even worse than the projections made during its negotiation?
How can we trust the United States, after George W. Bush and Donald Trump, the last two Republican presidents, had successively repudiated the Kyoto protocol (1997) and the Paris agreement (2015)? “We are entering the international arena with a credibility deficit”John Podesta, Barack Obama’s advisor in 2015, told Reuters when negotiating the text.
Strong political will
However, examining the situation may lead to the conclusion that Joe Biden and the United States are serious about the climate, because they have a political interest in it, are technologically ready and can use the climate as a tool of their diplomacy.
Internally, environmental awareness is clear and political will strong. The Trump years were marked by a series of symbolic decisions that caused an uproar, but Joe Biden immediately reversed them. The President announced the suspension of work on the KeystoneXL pipeline, which is to allow oil shale from Alberta to be exported from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.
He has declared a moratorium on the granting of oil exploration licenses in an Alaskan reserve, which the Trump administration has tried to push through to make them irremediable. He plans to reverse his predecessor’s decision to reduce the national parks that Barack Obama had enlarged to the extreme at the end of his mandate, such as Grand Staircase Escalante and Bears Ears in Utah.
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