Should we rejoin the Paris Agreement?
Yes with a specific target
Joe Biden
Former vice president
Biden “will not only recommit the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change – he will go much further than that,” his climate change plan said. “He will lead an effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets.” His plan calls for “a 100% clean energy economy and [reaching] net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
May 2: “Today, the House votes on #HR9, the #ClimateActionNow Act, which restores our commitment to the #ParisAgreement. We need to face facts on climate change. It’s already here. It is a major threat to our future and we simply cannot wait to take action.”
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Michael Bennet (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, Colorado
Bennet is no longer running for president. “Yes, I would rejoin the Paris climate agreement and other relevant climate negotiations on the first day of the Bennet Administration,” Bennet told The Post. His climate plan said, “In line with direction from global scientists, America must urgently reduce pollution below dangerous levels and achieve 100 percent clean, net-zero emissions as fast as possible, and in no case later than 2050.”
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Mike Bloomberg (Dropped out)
Former New York mayor
Bloomberg is no longer running for president. “Yes with a specific target. As I state in my international climate priorities plan, my first act as president will be to re-enter the Paris Agreement – and commit to not only meeting our original Paris goals, but also implementing policies that will put us on an accelerated track to go even further,” Bloomberg told The Post. “When I am president we will slash emissions by 50% by 2030 and bring the country to 80% clean power by the end of my second term. The results of the America’s Pledge initiative – which I launched with former Governor Jerry Brown after President Trump decided to withdraw from the Paris Agreement – show that bottom-up climate action from cities, states, and businesses have been the engine of climate action over the last three years. But those actions can only take us so far. We need federal engagement and leadership in the White House to address the global climate crisis.”
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Cory Booker (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, New Jersey
Booker is no longer running for president. “Yes. We need to substantially increase our commitments to decarbonize much more quickly, and push other countries to match the scale and pace of our actions,” Booker told The Post. His climate change plan calls for achieving “a carbon-neutral economy by 2045.”
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Pete Buttigieg (Dropped out)
Former mayor, South Bend, Ind.
Buttigieg is no longer running for president. “Yes, I would work with other nations to increase the targets of the Paris climate agreement,” Buttigieg told The Post. “We aspire to make our society a net-zero emissions one no later than 2050, working aggressively toward immediate targets,” his climate plan said.
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Julian Castro (Dropped out)
Former mayor, San Antonio
Castro is no longer running for president. “My first executive action, will be to rejoin the Paris Climate Accords and rally the international community to go further, achieving worldwide net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” Castro's climate plan said.
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Bill de Blasio (Dropped out)
Mayor, New York City
de Blasio is no longer running for president. “The U.S. should increase its ambition and target deeper reductions from our Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement, setting a benchmark of 40 percent reduction by 2030 and getting to net zero carbon emissions by 2050,” a campaign spokesman told The Post. “To achieve this we must reverse the disastrous Trump rollbacks to the Clean Power Plan and CAFE standards, while identifying new ways to decarbonize buildings and transportation as we are doing in NYC.”
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Tulsi Gabbard (Dropped out)
U.S. representative, Hawaii
Gabbard is no longer running for president. “Yes, I support rejoining the Paris climate agreement,” Gabbard told The Post. “Without global action to drastically curb carbon pollution, climate change threatens the safety and security of the planet, especially in places like Hawaii where we are already experiencing its devastating effects. The United States should be leading by example.” Gabbard supports requiring "global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human sources of 40 to 60 percent from 2010 levels by 2030," and net-zero emissions both in the U.S. and globally by 2050, a campaign spokesperson told The Post.
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Kirsten Gillibrand (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, New York
Gillibrand is no longer running for president. “We ... need to rejoin the Paris climate agreement, stop the expansion of offshore drilling and drilling on public lands and require companies to report climate risks,”campaign website said. Her campaign told The Post that Gillibrand “believes that globally, emissions targets should be adjusted to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, and in the U.S., we should strive to achieve net zero carbon in the next ten years.”
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Kamala D. Harris (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, California
Harris is no longer running for president. Harris “will immediately rejoin the Paris Agreement and chart a path forward, demonstrating to the international community that the U.S. is deeply committed to global climate action,” her climate plan said. “[Harris] will set an ambitious updated target and set forth a bold mid-century strategy of reaching a carbon-neutral economy by 2045.”
May 2: “This isn’t sustainable. We can’t keep relocating our cities — we must fix the problem. Another reason why the United States must act now, rejoin the Paris Agreement, and pass the Green New Deal. ”
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Jay Inslee (Dropped out)
Governor, Washington state
Inslee is no longer running for president. “Yes. President Trump’s attempt to leave the Paris Agreement was one of the most shameful decisions of a shameful presidency. America can and should be a leader in the global fight against climate change. As president, I will recommit to the Paris accord and work on Day 1 to undo Donald Trump’s attacks on international climate progress,” Inslee told The Post. “I have proposed cutting U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 50% by 2030, and achieving net-zero emissions throughout our economy no later than 2045.”
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Amy Klobuchar (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, Minnesota
Klobuchar is no longer running for president. Klobuchar supports rejoining the Paris climate agreement and would change original emissions targets, her campaign told The Post. Her climate change plan calls for putting “our country on a path to achieving 100% net-zero emissions no later than 2050 ...”
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Beto O'Rourke (Dropped out)
Former U.S. representative, Texas
O'Rourke is no longer running for president. “In order to resume our role on the world stage as the indispensable nation, we must re-enter the Paris Climate agreement and lead the negotiations for an even more ambitious global plan for 2030 and beyond,” an O’Rourke spokesman told The Post. “We can convene the powers of this planet together to act while there is still time and before it is too late — doing for ourselves and the world what no other country can do.” His climate plan calls for net zero U.S. emissions by 2050.
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Bernie Sanders (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, Vermont
Sanders is no longer running for president. “What President Trump did by withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord is an international disgrace,” a Sanders campaign spokesman said. Sanders “believes we must take bold action to fight climate change. While the Paris agreement was an important milestone toward solving climate change, even optimistic outcomes of these talks will not put the world on the path needed to avoid the most catastrophic results of climate change. We must think beyond Paris.” In his climate plan, Sanders said, “We will not only reduce US carbon pollution emissions by 71 percent, we will support less industrialized nations in the Global South, excluding China, to help them reduce emissions by 36 percent from 2017 levels by 2030, consistent with meeting our fair share of emissions reductions under the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s recommendations.”
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Tom Steyer (Dropped out)
Billionaire activist
Steyer is no longer running for president. “Yes and we should increase the ambition of our current commitment,” Steyer told The Post. “We should set a strong specific target of eliminating fossil fuel pollution from all sectors to achieve a 100% clean energy economy and net-zero global warming pollution by no later than 2045.” His climate plan framework pledges to “restore America to its position as a global leader and an indispensable party to global efforts to take on the climate crisis by redoubling our commitment to the Paris Agreement ... and other vital international agreements.”
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Elizabeth Warren (Dropped out)
U.S. senator, Massachusetts
Warren is no longer running for president. “I believe we need to return to the Paris Climate Accord,” Warren told The Post. “But we need to do far more to reduce global emissions.” Warren’s climate change plan includes “cutting carbon pollution roughly in half by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.”
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Marianne Williamson (Dropped out)
Author
Williamson is no longer running for president. “As president, I would immediately re-enter the Paris Climate Accords — while simultaneously working to expand talks to push for even more meaningful and enforceable agreements,” Williamson’s campaign site said. She would set a new target of “100% reduction of emissions by 2030,” she told The Post.
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Yes and strengthen pledges
Steve Bullock (Dropped out)
Governor, Montana
Bullock is no longer running for president. “The Trump Administration has undermined our global leadership on tackling climate change, and unravelled component parts of the Agreement. I would rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement on day one of my administration, fund our international commitments on climate, and begin high-level, multilateral engagement with countries like China — which emits twice the carbon that the US does,” Bullock told The Post. “I believe that both the urgency to act and the need to reestablish global leadership on climate solutions requires the US to strengthen our commitment. While many signatories to the Paris Agreement have plans for climate change actions by 2050, I believe we can achieve many of the goals by 2040 or earlier.”
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John Delaney (Dropped out)
Former U.S. representative, Maryland
Delaney is no longer running for president. Delaney supports rejoining the Paris agreement and making the targets stronger, he told The Post.
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John Hickenlooper (Dropped out)
Former governor, Colorado
May 20: “I will rejoin the Paris Climate Accords on my first day in office; and then exceed their targets and summon this generation of Americans to an all-out fight against climate change.”
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Seth Moulton (Dropped out)
U.S. representative, Massachusetts
Moulton is no longer running for president. “Yes, I support rejoining the Paris climate agreement,” Moulton told The Post. “And let’s not only get back into the Paris Accord, but make it stronger and better than it was before with lower emissions targets to match the scale and timing of the problem.”
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Tim Ryan (Dropped out)
U.S. representative, Ohio
Ryan is no longer running for president. “Yes. It is truly shameful that the United States is the only nation to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. As the richest and most powerful nation, we should not only be leading the fight stop climate change, but we should be working to reverse it,” Ryan told The Post. “[T]he Paris Climate Agreement is just a first step. We need to do more and be more ambitious.”
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Joe Sestak (Dropped out)
Former U.S. representative, Pennsylvania
Sestak is no longer running for president. “We must work together with the rest of the world to deal with the existential threat of climate change — and recognize together that Paris was just a start,” Sestak told The Post.
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Eric Swalwell (Dropped out)
U.S. representative, California
Swalwell is no longer running for president. “The United States must show world leadership on this crisis, including rejoining the Paris agreement – but the Paris goals are not ambitious enough,” Swalwell told The Post. “As President, I will convene a global climate summit in America in 2020 to reach a new international accord with more ambitious goals.”
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Andrew Yang (Dropped out)
Tech entrepreneur
Yang is no longer running for president. “America needs to rejoin the rest of the world in formally recognizing the threat posed by climate change and work with all nations to combat this existential crisis,” Yang told the New York Times. “The Paris Agreement doesn’t go far enough to mitigate climate change, and the U.S. should be a part of the conversation on what targets are necessary and how we can get to them.”
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Yes
Deval Patrick (Dropped out)
Former governor, Massachusetts
Patrick is no longer running for president. Patrick backed re-joining the Paris climate agreement at a New Hampshire event, according to WBUR.
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Background President Trump intends to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, under which the United States had pledged by 2025 to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent of its 2005 levels. This will leave the United States the only country to reject the agreement. As the second-largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, the United States would need to do considerably more than President Obama promised in order to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, experts say.

Global emissions pledges are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C
CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions
150 billion tons
Next presidential
term
100
50
0
2000
2021
2050
2100
Source: Climate Action Tracker

Global emissions pledges are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C
CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions
150 billion tons
Next presidential
term
100
50
0
2021
2100
2000
2050
Source: Climate Action Tracker

Global emissions pledges are not on track to limit warming to 1.5°C
CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas emissions
150 billion tons
Next presidential
term
100
50
0
2000
2021
2050
2100
Source: Climate Action Tracker
The Post is sending detailed questionnaires to every Democratic candidate asking for their stances on various issues. See all the issues we’ve asked about so far.
See our other questions on climate change:
- Would you support setting a price on carbon, such as with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade?
- Would you ban fracking?
- Do you support building more nuclear power plants?
- Would you ban fossil fuel exports?
- Would you end leasing for fossil fuel extraction on federal lands?
- Do you support the Green New Deal resolution?
- Would you eliminate fossil fuel subsidies?
- Are you doing something about your campaign’s carbon footprint?
How we compiled candidate positions
The Washington Post sent a detailed questionnaire to every Democratic campaign asking whether they support various climate change policies. We organized candidates with similar stances into groups using a combination of those answers, legislative records, action taken in an executive role and other public comments, such as policy discussion on campaign websites, social media posts, interviews, town halls and other news reports. See something that we missed? Let us know.
This page will update as we learn more about the candidates’ plans. We also will note if candidates change their position on an issue. At initial publication, this page included major candidates who had announced a run for president. If a candidate dropped out after a question was published here, their stance is included under the "Show former candidates" option. If they dropped out before a question was first published, the Post did not reach out to get their stance.
Candidate illustrations by Ben Kirchner.