US officially back in Paris climate accord, vows action

The United States has officially returned to the Paris climate accord, exactly one month after Joe Biden took office as the president and immediately moved to rejoin.

The world's largest economy and second largest carbon emitter was formally back in the 2015 accord on Thursday.

The re-entry of the United States means that the Paris accord again includes virtually every country after Biden's predecessor Donald Trump made the US the sole outlier.

"Climate change and science diplomacy can never again be 'add-ons' in our foreign policy discussions," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement saluting the return of the United States.

Biden plans an April 22 climate summit to coincide with Earth Day and John Kerry, the former secretary of state and now US climate envoy, has called for the world to raise ambitions during UN climate talks in Glasgow in November.

Biden has vowed to make the US power sector pollution-free by 2035 and to go to an entirely net-zero-emission economy by 2050.

The Paris accord aims to limit global temperature rises to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to go down to 1.5 degrees.

Trump had argued that the Paris climate accord was unfair to the United States.