World leaders cheer US return to climate fight under Biden

World leaders breathed an audible sigh of relief that the United States under President Joe Biden is rejoining the global effort to curb climate change, a cause that his predecessor had shunned over the past four years. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron were among those welcoming Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris climate accord, reversing a key Trump policy in the first hours of his presidency Jan. 20. The Paris accord, forged in the French capital in 2015, commits countries to put forward plans for reducing their emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which is released from burning fossil fuels. As president, Donald Trump questioned the scientific warnings about man-made global warming and the U.S. formally left the pact in November. Biden put the fight against climate change at the center of his presidential campaign and immediately launched a series of climate-friendly efforts to bring Washington back in step with the rest of the world on the issue. “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.” (AP) This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.