--- title: "Biden Moves to Rejoin Paris Climate Agreement" description: "Hours after being sworn in as president, Joe Biden signed an executive order that will move the country to rejoin the Paris climate agreement." date: "2021-01-20" modified: "2021-01-20" authors: - name: "Jon Christian" job_title: "Executive Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/jonc" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/biden-rejoin-paris-climate-agreement" categories: - "Climate Change" - "Environment" - "Science & Energy" tags: - "biden" - "environment" - "politics" - "the digest" --- # Biden Moves to Rejoin Paris Climate Agreement ![Biden has said very little about space. Here's what NASA could look like under his administration.]() *\Image: Gage Skidmore/Victor Tangermann\* ## Paris Accord Hours after being sworn in as the president of the United States, Joe Biden signed an executive order that will move the country to rejoin the Paris climate agreement — a strident reversal of America's environmental policy over the past four years. "A cry for survival comes from the planet itself," Biden said during his inaugural address earlier in the day. "A cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear." ## Heat Effect By rejoining the Paris agreement, Biden is following through on [a promise to reverse]() his predecessor Donald Trump's 2017 decision to withdraw the US from the agreement, which [became official late last year](). The agreement, signed in 2016, requires its member countries to take incremental steps to fight climate change, with the overarching goal of preventing global warming that exceeds two degrees Celsius. "We got off track very severely for the last four years with a climate denier in the Oval Office," said John Podesta, an adviser to former President Barack Obama who helped craft agreement, in an [interview with *Reuters*](). "We enter the international arena with a credibility deficit." ## No Backsies Internationally, too, the United States has already damaged its standing by withdrawing in the first place before rejoining the agreement — which international observers were quick to point out. "The United States continues to be the one and only country that has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, making it, frankly, the pariah of this multilateral agreement,” former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres told *Reuters*. **READ MORE:** [Biden set to rejoin Paris climate accord, impose curbs on U.S. oil industry]() \[*Reuters*\] **More on the environment:** [*Scientists Warn of “Ghastly Future” for Global Environment*]() ## Author I'm responsible for editing, assigning, and scouting at Futurism, as well as occasionally writing for the site. That work involves keeping an eye on a wide range of narratives and issues, but over the past few years I've become increasingly interested in how AI is shaping the future of media, the web, and information itself. My day-to-day often involves collaborating on reporting and commentary projects bylined by my colleagues, but I try to find time to do my own reporting as well; stories I've broken for Futurism have been cited by publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Yorker, Wired, Ars Technica, New York Magazine, the Columbia Journalism Review, Bloomberg, and more. I grew up in Southern Vermont and attended Vanderbilt University. Prior to Futurism, I contributed to outlets including the Boston Globe, Vice, Wired, Slate, the Atlantic, the Outline, Ars Technica and more, and did stints in farming and food service. I currently live in Brooklyn, New York, and in my free time I enjoy pinball, word games, cycling, running, and music production. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()