The United States is formally back in the Paris climate agreement as of Feb. 19, 2021, nearly four years after former President Donald Trump announced it would pull out.
We asked five scholars what the U.S. rejoining the international agreement means for the nation and the rest of the world, including for food security, safety and the changing climate. Nearly every country has ratified the 2015 agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius. The U.S. was the only one to withdraw.
What rejoining Paris means for America’s place in the world
Morgan Bazilian, Public Policy Professor and Director of the Payne Institute, Colorado School of Mines
Amanda Gorman, the National Youth Poet Laureate, wrote in her poem for U.S. President Joe Biden’s inauguration, “When day comes we step out of the shade.” That’s a good articulation of why the United States is now rejoining the Paris Agreement.