Biden says he’s sorry about Trump in Cop26 speech: ‘I do apologise’

President Joe Biden on Monday told a group of fellow heads of government he was sorry that former president Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate accords put the world “behind the eight ball” in the fight against climate change.

“I do apologise for the fact that the United States, in the last administration, pulled out of the Paris accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit,” Mr Biden said while speaking at a Cop26 leaders’ panel called: “Action and Solidarity – The Critical Decade”.

Mr Trump had announced that the US would exit the agreement — which he claimed put America “at a permanent disadvantage” compared with other industrialised nations — in 2017, but because of the agreement’s withdrawal provisions, it took until 4 November 2020, the day after US voters voted to reject his re-election bid, for the US exit to take place.

Re-entering the agreement — which sets a long-term goal of keeping the mean rise in global temperatures from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius — was one of Mr Biden’s first acts upon being sworn in on 20 January of this year, with the US re-entry formally taking place on 19 February.