President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced America's return to the international Paris Agreement to fight climate change, the centrepiece of a raft of day-one executive orders aimed at restoring US leadership in combating global warming.

The announcements also included a sweeping order to review all of former president Donald Trump's actions weakening climate change protections, the revocation of a vital permit for TC Energy's Keystone XL oil pipeline project from Canada, and a moratorium on oil and gas leasing activities in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that Trump's administration had recently opened to development.

The orders by the newly sworn-in president will mark the start of a major policy reversal in the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas emitter behind China, after the Trump administration pilloried climate science and rolled back environmental regulation...