[ad_1]
The leaders of America’s closest allies have enthusiastically welcomed Joe Biden’s incoming presidency as a crucial opportunity to tackle the unfolding climate crisis, after four years of dislocation under Donald Trump.
In the congratulatory tweets sent in the wake of Biden’s election victory, both Boris johnson, the British Prime Minister, and Emmanuel macron, the French president, put climate change at the top of a list of issues they are willing to work on with the president-elect of the United States once he takes office in January.
Johnson, who had a 25-minute conversation with Biden on Tuesday, said the elections provide the “real perspective of US global leadership on addressing climate change” after a tumultuous period in which Trump pulled the United States out of the climate accord of Paris and went to work. dismantle all major domestic policies aimed at reducing global warming emissions.
Macron, who also held a brief call with Biden, previously clashed with Trump over the climate crisis and directly warned the US Congress that there is “no planet B” if an environmental calamity occurs. Meanwhile, Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, told a conference hosted by the Financial Times that he hopes to address climate change with the United States again, acknowledging that Trump’s time as president had been “unpredictable.”
Biden has vowed to rejoin the Paris accord, a prospect greeted with a sigh of relief among America’s traditional allies and which provides a welcome boost to key UN climate talks to be held in Scotland next year. . Todd Stern, who was the top US negotiator in Paris, has said that the difference between Trump and Biden on the weather will be like “day and night.”
Biden will try to pressure other countries to cut emissions more profoundly by using the diplomatic influence of the United States, the lure of financial assistance for adaptation, and increasing investment in clean energy technology. Internal progress will be more complicated, and control of the Senate is likely to remain with Republicans indifferent to the need for radical climate action.
“I am confident that President-elect Biden will return to the climate space in full force,” said Kim Carnahan, who was America’s top climate negotiator in the Trump administration before leaving this year to join sustainability firm Engie Impact. . “Right off the bat, I’m sure there will be some resentment toward America, but as a general rule, every country I’ve talked to wants America to come back. The window is still open to comply with the Paris agreement and it can be done. “
However, the challenge is enormous. Despite promises made by the international community in Paris to curb global warming, the world is on track to reach more than 3 ° C of average warming, a situation that is already beginning to overwhelm storms, heat waves and a disastrous Rising sea levels.
Scientists say 2020 has a good chance of being the hottest year on record, following high temperatures that have fueled huge wildfires in places like California and Australia and caused further melting of ice in the Arctic.
[ad_2]
