Biden’s victory: The key to a possible solution? 

The democrat Joe Biden has just won the general elections of the United States of America, and this victory is being celebrated all over the country. A victory full of promises in a country that, despite being one of first world powers and being a role model place for the rest of the countries, with its american dream, actually has to face many socio economic problems such as high poverty rates and systematic racism, not to mention de deep economic crisis the country has entered due to Covid-19 pandemic.

The President-elect has a very promising agenda of plans that include: increasing and improving measures to deal with the Covid-19 crisis; reversing policies against the LGBT community imposed by Trump; improving the country's health system by offering a public health option, between others; and, lastly but not less important, what we wanted to emphasize here: The Biden plan for a clean energy revolution and environmental justice. This is an extremely important and strong point since the USA is the third most polluting country in the world, according to a study made by Science Advances magazine; and this includes marine plastic pollution.

 

Marine plastic pollution is one of the most dangerous form of pollution since it affects many marine and non marine species, it affects the marine environment because plastics take many years (even centuries) to dissolve, and it also affects us, humans, because we take so many things from this polluted nature source, such as animals to eat and water to drink and use, between others. Taking this into account, Biden’s plan to clean the environment would be an extremely important step which could have worldwide influence and consequences. According to the European Commission, Biden’s victory environmental plans include reversing Trump’s decision to take off the USA from the Paris Agreement, which (and I quote from the European Commission’s webpage) “sets out a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. It also aims to strengthen countries’ ability to deal with the impacts of climate change and support them in their efforts.”  This agreement was adopted at the Paris climate conference (COP21) in December 2015, and many countries have participated ever since (over a hundred states), ones taking more action than others. 

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This could play a key role in the fight against climate change and pollution because, as I said before, the US is one of the most polluting countries in the world, and if they take restrictions to control this enormous problem, it could have very beneficial consequences on the environment. It could also inspire (or, better said, push) other countries to do the same since the USA is one of the first world powers and its decisions have much influence in its international relationships and in other world powers like Europe. 

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Nevertheless, this is only a prediction of what could happen, since Biden’s victory is a very recent event and he hasn’t made any changes yet, and we don’t know if he will fulfill his promises or not. What do you think about this, will he do what he promises on his electoral agenda? If he does, do you think this will affect our environment and the wellbeing of our oceans? And will this make the other countries to follow the same steps? You can send us your thoughts on this topic on the section below, we will be thrilled to read all of your opinions!