January, 13 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Biden Expected to Rejoin Paris Agreement on Day One, Bring US Back into International Fold
Statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, Union of Concerned Scientists
WASHINGTON
Just a few short months after the Trump administration withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, the Biden administration is expected to formally request to rejoin, with an executive order anticipated for Inauguration Day on January 20.
Below is a statement by Dr. Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Cleetus has attended the U.N.'s international climate talks and partnered with the international community on climate and energy policies for more than 14 years.
"President Biden's swift action to rejoin the Paris Agreement will be the first step to bring the United States back into the fold of the global community after four years of being isolated and on the sidelines. With communities in the U.S. and around the world reeling from a terrible spate of climate disasters in 2020, it's a relief that the incoming administration has pledged to have science guide their decision-making in addressing the climate crisis.
"In addition to rejoining the Paris Agreement, the Biden administration must make an ambitious and credible international climate commitment, backed by domestic policy action, well ahead of the next U.N. climate talks in Glasgow this November.
"For far too long the nations least responsible for runaway climate change have borne the brunt of its impacts and received little help from major emitters. The United States is the second largest emitter of carbon emissions from fossil fuels annually and the largest source of cumulative emissions to date. Yet for decades, it has not done its fair share to rein in emissions.
"It's time for the Biden administration to usher in a new paradigm--one that is morally defensible and reflects the latest science. At a minimum, Congress and the Biden administration need to collectively ensure the U.S. contributes an additional $8 billion to the Green Climate Fund--the largest dedicated fund to aid developing countries in addressing climate change--over the next four years. The U.S. also must reduce its heat-trapping emissions economywide by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
"There will be a number of opportunities in 2021 for the Biden administration to help advance a progressive climate agenda when world leaders convene, including at annual meetings of the G7, G20 and the U.N. climate talks. It would also be wise for President Biden and his international climate envoy, John Kerry, to hold bilateral and multilateral discussions with other major emitting countries to solidify ways to collectively tackle the climate crisis head-on.
"The world is currently far off-track from where we need to be to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. Our choices over the next decade will be deeply consequential for people and the planet. The Biden administration must work with Congress and other nations to ensure we live up to that responsibility."
More information on what a Biden presidency means for climate action can be found here. For more on what needs to happen in the lead up to the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow (COP26), click here.
To arrange an interview with Dr. Cleetus, please contact UCS Senior Communications Officer Ashley Siefert Nunes.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
China Slams US ‘Warmongers’ as Trump Announces Record $11 Billion Arms Sale to Taiwan
China's foreign minister warned that US weapons sales to Taipei "will only accelerate the push towards a perilous state of military confrontation across the Taiwan Strait."
Dec 18, 2025
The Chinese government on Thursday condemned the Trump administration's announcement of a proposed $11 billion weapons package for Taiwan, a move that Beijing said violates both the "One China" principle and an agreement in which the US pledged to reduce arms sales to Taipei.
The US State Department said the record $11.154 billion package contains a broad range of weaponry and other military equipment, including Lockheed Martin High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Lockheed Martin Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) long-range missiles, BAE Systems M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, drones and tactical software, Javelin and TOW missiles, and M2A1 machine guns and other armaments.
"This proposed sale serves US national, economic, and security interests by supporting the recipient’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability," the State Department said in a statement. "The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region."
Taiwanese leaders thanked the US for its continued efforts to help the island defend itself.
However, Chen Binhua, spokesperson for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, blasted the proposed sale as “flagrant interference in China’s internal affairs" that "severely undermines China’s sovereignty and security interests and sends erroneous signals to separatist forces."
Chen said that the arms package "gravely violates" the "One China" principle, which, to the US means that the People's Republic of China (PRC) is “the sole legal government of China," but to Beijing means that Taiwan—which it views as a breakaway province—is an inseparable part of the Chinese nation.
While the US acknowledges the PRC's position that there is but one China, Washington does not recognize or accept Beijing's stance. Although it has no formal diplomatic relations with Taipei, the US is obliged under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to "provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character."
China says this directly contradicts US obligations under the so-called "Three Communiques" with Beijing—especially an August 17, 1982 agreement under which Washington pledged that it would respect PRC sovereignty and that it "intends gradually to reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan."
China has accused the US of violating the August 17 communique with each of its many arms sales to Taiwan.
"We urge the United States to immediately cease its policy of arming Taiwan and to stop condoning and supporting separatist forces advocating Taiwan independence," Chen said Thursday. "We urge the United States to exercise the utmost caution in handling the Taiwan issue.”
Chen added that US "warmongers" and Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party—which he accused of “stubbornly pursuing independence”—risk turning the island into a "powder keg" and the Taiwanese people into "cannon fodder."
Under pressure from the Trump administration to buy more US arms, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te last month announced a special $40 billion budget for the purchase of weapons between 2026 and 2033.
The latest proposed US arms sale follows Congress' passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which authorizes up to $1 billion in funding for Taiwan's defense. US President Donald Trump is expected to imminently sign the record $900.6 billion bill into law.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Thursday that the US effort to contain China by arming Taiwan is "doomed to fail."
"It will only accelerate the push towards a perilous state of military confrontation across the Taiwan Strait,” he added.
Keep ReadingShow Less
‘Feckless’ Ken Martin Rebuked Over DNC Decision to Bury Autopsy of 2024 Election Disaster
"You can’t run as the party of democracy and transparency and then stick your own election autopsy in a drawer," said one critic.
Dec 18, 2025
The Democratic National Committee on Thursday drew strong criticism when it was revealed that the party's autopsy of its failures in the 2024 presidential election would not be publicly released.
According to the New York Times, DNC Chairman Ken Martin has decided against releasing the report because he "believes that looking back so publicly and painfully at the past would prove counterproductive for the party as it tries next year to take back power in Congress."
The decision to keep a lid on the report, however, is already sparking a backlash.
The New Republic's Greg Sargent argued in a Thursday piece that the decision by the DNC to bury the report "should unleash harsh criticism and recriminations" because it "could end up protecting key actors inside the party from accountability over the blown but winnable contest."
Sargent then pointed the finger at Future Forward, a super PAC that he said has earned a reputation for blowing large sums of money on ineffective television ads.
"Well before Election Day, the PAC came under harsh criticism from some Democrats who argued that it hadn’t spent sufficient money earlier in the campaign on ads attacking Trump," Sargent wrote. "Other Democrats charged that Future Forward’s ad-testing model and addiction to traditional TV ads led to anodyne communications and that its flawed theory of politics caused it to refrain from sufficiently targeting Trump, letting him avoid blame for his first-term disasters on Covid-19 and the economy."
Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director of the Revolving Door Project, told Common Dreams that Martin's decision to bury the report was part of a broader pattern of a lack of accountability for US elites, an issue that he said is becoming more important" as America gets less and less equal."
"Ken Martin seems determined to become the Merrick Garland of DNC Chairs," added Hauser, "a feckless amiable sort unwilling to take on the powerful people who scream out for stringent accountability. Democrats ought to re-center their entire party around holding elites, be they from Big Tech, the Democratic Party establishment, Big Oil, or Trump's kleptocratic regime, accountable."
Rotimi Adeoye, a columnist for MS Now and former communications strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union, also accused party insiders of trying to protect elites at the expense of rebuilding public trust with voters.
"This is also happening as Congressional Dems sit at a -55 net approval," he argued on X. "If your numbers are that bad and your response is to bury the autopsy, you’re basically telling voters the insiders get protection while the base gets lectures."
Adeoye added that "you can’t run as the party of democracy and transparency and then stick your own election autopsy in a drawer," and said that "if the DNC thinks the report would 'hurt the party,' that means the problems are real and political, not analytical—and that’s exactly why people want to read it."
Journalist Yashar Ali, meanwhile, sent out a message on Bluesky encouraging DNC staffers who have access to the report to let him publish it.
"If you have access to this DNC report, please send it to me," he wrote. "I will protect your anonymity."
While the DNC isn't releasing its own report documenting party failures in 2024, the progressive advocacy group RootsAction last week published an autopsy written by journalist Christopher D. Cook, who argued that former Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign made a major mistake by trying to court so-called moderate Republican voters and corporate donors instead of focusing on the struggles of working-class Americans.
"This was a preventable disaster," Cook said, "but Harris and the Democratic Party leadership prioritized the agendas of corporate donors and gambled on a centrist path, while largely abandoning working-class, young, and progressive voters."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'It's All About the Oil,' Says Venezuelan Defense Minister After 'Incoherent' Trump Claims
The minister also echoed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's declaration that the US seizing oil tankers is "piracy."
Dec 18, 2025
As President Donald Trump continues his march toward a US war on Venezuela, the South American country's defense minister on Wednesday blasted his "delusional" and "completely incoherent" claims, and echoed warnings from around the world that "it's all about the oil."
In addition to killing nearly 100 people by bombing alleged drug smuggling boats, Trump has authorized covert Central Intelligence Agency action in Venezuela and repeatedly threatened attacks on land. Late Tuesday, Trump declared a naval blockade that he said will continue until the nation returns to the US "all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us."
Trump appears to be referring to the presence that US companies had in Venezuela before the country nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s. On Wednesday, the Republican president told reporters: "Getting land, oil rights, whatever we had—they took it away because we had a president that maybe wasn't watching. But they're not gonna do that. We want it back. They took our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. As you know, they threw our companies out, and we want it back."
In a Wednesday speech, Venezuela's defense minister, Vladimir Padrino López, pushed back against Trump's blockade, threats of military action, and "delirious" claims that the country stole its own oil, land, and other assets from the United States. The minister also reiterated a declaration from Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro that the US seizing oil tankers is "piracy."
As CNN reported, Maduro—whom Trump aims to oust from power—gave a similar speech about the US administration's purported goal of combating drug trafficking in Caracas on Wednesday.
"It is simply a warmongering and colonialist pretense, and we have said so many times, and now everyone sees the truth. The truth has been revealed," Maduro said. "The aim in Venezuela is a regime change to impose a puppet government that wouldn't last 47 hours, that would hand over the Constitution, sovereignty, and all the wealth, turning Venezuela into a colony. It will simply never happen."
According to Anadolu Agency, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said on social media this week: "We will continue to be free and independent in our energy relations. Together with President Nicolás Maduro, we will continue to defend the homeland.”
Although the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on Wednesday night narrowly defeated a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at reining in Trump's actions toward Venezuela, lawmakers from both major parties have also called out the administration's drug claims and argued against launching another US war for oil.
Responding to a clip of Trump's comments to reporters on Wednesday, US Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), who sponsored one of the resolutions, wrote on social media: "I've said it many times before: This is not about drugs. If the goal were stopping narcotics, this administration would not be talking about oil rights or seizing tankers. That is not a lawful basis for war."
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the few Republicans who supported the resolutions, took to the House floor ahead of the votes on Wednesday to denounce Trump's march toward an unconstitutional war and declare that "this is about oil and regime change."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular