The Biden-Harris victory at the US Election signals a new era of federal climate policy in the US because President-elect Joe Biden campaigned on clean energy and climate resilience as core to his plans for the country. One of Biden’s key promises is to make $2 trillion of investment in clean energy and climate-resilient infrastructure a core pillar of his economic recovery and jobs programme. Even before Biden was declared the president-elect he promised via Twitter to return the US to the Paris Agreement. He did so exactly three years after President Donald Trump withdrew the country from the international climate change forum.

On his campaign website, Biden has pledged not only to rejoin the agreement, but to lobby for greater international climate ambition. “He will lead an effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets,” the site says. “He will make sure those commitments are transparent and enforceable, and stop countries from cheating by using America’s economic leverage and power of example.”

Scientists around the world are breathing a sigh of relief. Trump and Biden have taken opposite positions on how to address the climate crisis. Biden has proposed to spend USD$2 trillion over four years to boost green jobs and infrastructure and achieve a carbon-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions nationwide by 2050. In contrast, incumbent President Trump has repeatedly denied climate science and has rolled back nearly 100 climate policies throughout his term, including standards for power plant and vehicle emissions. He has also appointed former energy lobbyists to head both the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as a climate change denier at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

However, even if Biden rejoins the agreement, it may be difficult for other countries to trust U.S. leadership on the issue, BBC News pointed out. This is the second time the U.S. has helped to negotiate an international climate deal and then been unable to maintain support at home. The Clinton administration was not able to get the Senate to agree to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.