Despite a tumultuous and polarizing election, President Joe Biden wasted no time in working to make his promises a reality. During his candidacy, Biden communicated an ambitious plan to fight global climate change. This vision included 1.7 trillion dollars allocated towards shifting our society in an effort to reach a 100 percent clean economy by the year 2050. Although that is almost 30 years away, real change does not happen overnight, and the cooperation of government leaders within our country and on a global stage is essential to fulfilling this plan. The severity and extent of climate change include a rise in temperatures and sea levels, melting ice sheets, and increasing the extreme power of natural disasters. He announced that this plan would create a total of 10 million new jobs for the American people.

President Biden has deemed climate change “the existential threat of our time” and will build upon a framework for improving our environment, set forth by plans such as the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal was proposed by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Edward J. Markey at the beginning of 2019. This plan is similar to Biden’s in that they both wish to fulfill the overarching goal of decreasing carbon emissions while creating more jobs. 

In addition to his plan on how to tackle climate change, Biden also announced that the US would be rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day of presidency. The Paris Climate Agreement was created in 2016 in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The US was originally part of this agreement but left in 2019 due to former President Trump believing that this agreement would, “punish the American people while enriching foreign polluters.” Over time, in the US, the validity and severity of this has been put into question and undermined. It has become another debate and polarizing issue among the American people.