The 26th Conference of Parties (COP26) is a conference in which United Nations leaders gather to discuss strategies to combat climate change. This year, hosted by the U.K. and Italy, leaders met up in Glasgow, Scotland.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was an international committee that signed an environmental treaty in 1992; it laid out the basic guidelines for countries to effectively combat climate change. The plan involves expectations that nations rise above borders to work against global warming. Since then, the treaty has been updated several times, including in 2015 in Paris, France. At the time, the threshold of global warming was set to 2℃ to avoid permanent damage to the Earth. That alliance, known as the Paris Climate Agreement or the Paris Accord, has made headlines again due to the U.S. rejoining the committee. As a major world power, the U.S.’ decision holds much significance in terms of influencing smaller countries around the world. With this year’s goal set to reach net zero carbon emissions by the end of the century, it is crucial that there is as much global participation as possible.

With the Trump administration in office in the last four years, the U.S. climate policy took a turn for the worse. All progress towards going green reverted to square one when Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, encouraged a more coal-based economy, and removed funding from ecological preservations. Although the carbon emissions in the last four years have been decreasing, they have not followed the downward trend predicted prior to Trump taking office.

At COP26, President Joe Biden apologized for his predecessor’s actions towards climate change, saying “I do apologize for the fact that the United States, in the last administration, pulled out of the Paris Accord.”

So, how will this affect you? As an individual, there will be no immediate impacts from the U.S. coming back into the Paris Accord. However, more legislation will be focused on reducing the amount of greenhouse gases that make it into the atmosphere. This may happen in the form of greater tax reductions for using clean energy such as solar or electric cars, as they do not require burning limited resources to acquire energy. Biden’s current goal is to cut U.S. carbon emissions in half by the year 2030. 

“The United States, if I have anything to do with it, we’ll do our part,” he vowed.

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