US to rejoin Paris climate agreement

US president Joe Biden today is moving to put the country back in the Paris climate agreement, taking one of his first steps in setting a new direction for US climate policy.

In one of his first acts in office Biden will sign an instrument to rejoin the global climate accord, which will be submitted to the UN today, his transition office said. That means the US will formally become a party to the agreement again in 30 days.

"The United States will be back in position to exercise global leadership in advancing the objectives of the agreement," the Biden transition office said shortly before his inauguration today.

The swift move to re-join the agreement is being welcome by many environmental and clean energy advocates, who hope it portends more aggressive action by the US under the new administration.

"For the world to overcome this challenge, our country must do more than simply play a part; we must lead," said Heather Zichal, chief executive of industry group the American Clean Power Association, who served as a climate policy adviser to former-president Barack Obama.

The US under Obama had pledged to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26-28pc from 2005 levels to help achieve the Paris agreement's end goal of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. The US is the world's second largest emitter of GHGs. When the US rejoins, it will likely have to come up with a new, more aggressive target, as countries under the Paris agreement are expected to update their national commitments every five years.

The return of the US to the Paris agreement is also being welcome by officials in other countries, who say they are looking forward to working with a more agreeable US administration when it comes to climate policy.

"This will be a very strong starting point for our renewed cooperation," European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said today while addressing the European Parliament.

Von der Leyen also said she hopes for more cooperation with the US on related issues such as emissions trading and carbon pricing.

The US formally exited the Paris accord on 4 November 2020, the day after the presidential election. President Donald Trump had called the agreement a bad deal for the US economy, a view still shared by many Republicans in Congress.

"The Paris climate agreement is based on the backward idea that the United States is a culprit here, when in reality the United States is the leading driver of climate solutions," US senator John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) said.

But a growing number of US companies and business groups are backing the global climate effort.

The US Chamber of Commerce, which just a few years ago had questioned the cost of the Paris agreement, today applauded Biden and said it is "critical that the United States restore its leadership role in international efforts to address the climate challenge."

Last year the Business Roundtable, which represents top executives at many of the largest companies in the US, endorsed the goals of the Paris agreement and called for increased US leadership on the global stage.

Biden is also starting off his term with a number of other steps to re-shape federal climate policy, including signing an executive order that aims to overturn Trump's weakening of rules affecting oil, gas and coal.

The order also calls for reconvening an inter-agency working group on the social cost of carbon and directing it to issue an interim cost schedule to ensure that federal agencies account for the "full costs of GHG emissions, including climate risk, environmental justice and intergenerational equity" in their work.

Former president Barack Obama's administration first set the federal carbon cost to inform agency decisions in 2010. It would have been at $50/metric tonne last year, but the Trump administration substantially lowered the value to help justify its rollback of Obama-era CO2 regulations for power plants and new cars.

By Michael Ball