Back in Paris pact, US vows no more sidelining of climate

The United States officially returned to the Paris global climate accord on Friday, and President Joe Biden and other U.S. leaders declared the nation could not afford to sideline the growing climate crisis again.
“We can no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change. This is a global existential crisis, and all of us will suffer if we fail,” Biden told European leaders at a Munich security conference by video Friday.
“We’re back,” Biden said, renewing assurances the U.S. was back in global initiatives at large.
Officially, President Donald Trump’s removal of the nation from the worldwide global climate pact stood for only 107 days. It was part of Trump’s withdrawal from global allegiances in general and his often-stated but false view that ongoing global warming was a laughably mistaken take by the world’s scientists.
The U.S. return to the Paris agreement became official Friday, almost a month after Biden told the United Nations that America wants back in. “A cry for survival comes from the planet itself,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “A cry that can’t be any more desperate or any more clear now.”
While Friday’s return is heavily symbolic, world leaders say they expect America to prove its seriousness after four years of being pretty much absent. They are especially anticipating an announcement from the U.S. in coming months on its goal for cutting damaging emissions from burning coal and petroleum by 2030.
The Biden administration says it will settle on a tougher new target for the U.S. emissions cuts by the time Biden hosts a planned Earth Day global summit for world leaders, April 22.
Biden signed an executive order on his first day in office reversing the pullout ordered by Trump. The Trump administration had…
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