WASHINGTON — One of President-elect Joseph R. Biden’s loftiest campaign pledges was to reimagine the federal government to enforce new climate policies everywhere he can, while reclaiming the global climate leadership role abandoned by President Trump — objectives with few precedents and many barriers. His choice this week of Gina McCarthy to lead a new White House office on climate policy firms up his strategy for achieving them, both domestically and on the world stage. Ms. McCarthy, who, as head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Obama administration, served as the architect of the nation’s first climate change regulations, will take up an unusually powerful role, with authority to reach across the government to embed climate policies in virtually every federal agency. Mr. Biden last month named Mr. Kerry as his global climate envoy with a seat on the National Security Council, for the first time ever putting climate change at the center of every foreign policy decision that reaches the White House. Mr. Kerry has been asked to travel the world with the tricky task of prodding other nations to follow Washington’s lead on climate policy, after four years during which President Trump shredded climate initiatives and mocked climate science.

Source: New York Times December 16, 2020 22:33 UTC