A: What is global warming?
B: What is The Paris Agreement?
C: Why did the United States leave The Paris Agreement?
D: Why has the U.S. rejoined the Paris agreement?
A: What is global warming?
In 1800 the Industrial Revolution took place, and a lot of new factories were built. With the invention and advance of new technology there was an increased need of fuel and natural resources. These processes resulted in a massive increase of CO2 emissions. However, this was not known at the time. Due to this increase, seasons have new extremes, such as snowstorms in warm places, heat waves in cold countries, terrible droughts, and deadly floods.
The average temperature on earth’s surface has already increased by 1 degree Celsius. This may seem minor, but it is detrimental to the environment. Moreover, if emissions continue to rise, the climate disasters will be so severe that it will destabilise entire countries, creating millions of environmental refugees and sending them across borders and potentially into homelessness. The melting polar icecaps are flooding many of the world’s coastal cities, leaving them several feet underwater. Countries such as India, Vietnam, and China could become partly submerged, while low lying countries like Holland may no longer even exist. Moreover, even London and Venice would be reclaimed by the Adriatic Sea.
The graph below illustrates the change in global surface temperature from 1880 to 2019. The year 2016 was the warmest year on record until now, with an increased temperature of 1.02 degree Celsius above average compared to the middle of the 20th century.
B: What is The Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement is an international agreement to combat climate change, that 196 parties signed in 2015. The agreement aims to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to attempt to limit rising temperatures around the world.
Given that the United States and China together emit 40% of the total greenhouse gases worldwide, it is increasingly important for these two countries to cooperate with the Paris agreement and contribute towards the rebuilding of countries already affected by the climate crisis.
C: Why did the United States leave The Paris Agreement?
On June 1, 2017, then-United States President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would leave the Paris Agreement. Trump claimed that climate change is a “hoax” and the agreement would wreak havoc on the country’s economy. On November 4, 2019, the U.S. was officially the first country in the world to leave The Paris Agreement.
Shortly after the announcement was made, that the U.S. would leave the Paris Agreement, China, on the contrary, said that they want to become carbon neutral by 2060. Many questions remain regarding China's strategy, the most critical of these is how the country would define carbon neutrality. That being said, the mere fact that China, by far the world's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, has announced a net-zero commitment ahead of the United States demonstrates how hard Beijing is working to place itself at the forefront of global politics and the economic shift to clean energy.
D: Has the U.S. rejoined the Paris agreement?
Only a few hours after officially being President of the United States, Joe Biden rejoins the Paris Climate Agreement as a strategy to fight global warming.
Since February 19, 2021, thanks to Joe Biden, the U.S. has once again become a part of the global climate solution. Rejoining the Paris Agreement was one of the first things the new President has done. The U.S. are once again one of the 196 parties participating in the effort to try to lower Earth’s temperatures and stop a global crisis.
Biden plans to spend around 2 trillion dollars on rapidly deploying clean energy technology around the country over the next four years. Biden's goal is to eliminate fossil fuels from electricity production by 2035 and he claims the U.S. could be carbon neutral by 2050. This could also create millions of job opportunities for people, as there would be a need for engineers, scientists, construction workers and, later on, people to operate renewable energy sources.
Overall, now that the U.S., one of the biggest CO2 emitters, have rejoined the Paris Agreement, we can all hope for a more promising and stable future.
Interested to read more? Here are some extra resources and interesting websites about global warming and the Paris Agreement:
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