"Today is a day of hope, as the United States officially rejoins the Paris Agreement. This is good news for the United States, and for the world," says UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 19 -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday hailed the re-entry of the United States into the Paris Agreement on climate change and called for global action to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
"Today is a day of hope, as the United States officially rejoins the Paris Agreement. This is good news for the United States, and for the world," Guterres told a virtual event to mark the U.S. re-entry.
"For the past four years, the absence of a key player created a gap in the Paris Agreement, a missing link that weakened the whole. So today, as we mark the United States re-entry into this treaty, we also recognize its restoration, in its entirety, as its creators intended," he said. "Welcome back."
The United States signed the Paris Agreement on April 22, 2016, and expressed its consent to be bound by the agreement by acceptance on Sept. 3, 2016. Donald Trump, shortly after taking office as U.S. president, announced in June 2017 that his country would cease all participation in the agreement. The U.S. withdrawal officially took effect on Nov. 4, 2020.
On his first day in the White House, President Joe Biden signed a new instrument of acceptance, which was deposited with the UN secretary-general on the same day, enabling the U.S. re-entry on Feb. 19, 2021, in accordance with provisions of the Paris Agreement.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delivers a speech at the Climate Ambition Summit at the UN headquarters in New York, on Dec. 12, 2020. (Mark Garten/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)
Guterres on Friday called for U.S. and global action to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
The Paris Agreement is a historic achievement. But the commitments made so far are not enough. And even those commitments made in Paris are not being met, said Guterres.
The six years since 2015, when the Paris Agreement was negotiated, have been the six hottest years on record. Carbon dioxide levels are at record highs. Fires, floods and other extreme weather events are getting worse, in every region, he said. "If we don't change course, we could face a catastrophic temperature rise of more than 3 degrees this century."
This year is pivotal for global climate action, and the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, in November will be a make-or-break occasion. Governments will take decisions that will determine the future of people and the planet, he said.
The United States, together with all members of the Group of 20 largest economies in the world, has a decisive role in delivering three main objectives: the long-term vision, the decade of transformation, and urgent climate action now, he said.
