The US administration has officially left the Paris Climate Agreement on Wednesday, 4 November, three years after US President Donald Trump declared that they had intended to do so, but Democratic candidate Joe Biden claims that “a Biden Administration will rejoin it”.
“Today, the Trump Administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. And in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it.”Joe Biden
The US presidential election is presently underway, and as the counting of ballots continues in several key states, Democratic nominee Joe Biden has become the presidential candidate to win the most votes in the history of the US.
The results from the 2020 US presidential election have so far shown a neck-and-neck contest between incumbent US President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden, with the race coming down to the wire with just a few battleground states, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
The Paris Agreement
According to ABC News, the US administration, on Wednesday, 4 November, officially withdrew from the Paris Agreement that aims to tackle the problem of climate change.
The accord is a collective agreement between nearly 200 countries which aims to keep the earth’s temperature from rising 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial revolution temperatures.
A rise in temperature, according to climate scientists, could have disastrous consequences, with sea levels rising and more extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, drought and wildfires. This, according to ABC News, in turn, could lead to mass migration and shortages in food production, say experts.
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Trump, however, had in 2017 claimed that the accord could be economically detrimental and cost 2.5 million Americans their jobs by 2025, and expressed his intention to withdraw from the agreement, in 2017.
Biden, on the other hand, according to ABC news, had proposed a $5 trillion plan to combat climate change.
Trump, according to ABC news, has also said that he would be open to renegotiation a “deal that’s fair” in order to rejoin the accord.
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