LIKE many across America and around the world, I breathed a sign of relief at the news that Donald Trump’s time in the White House will soon be over. And this week that came another step closer with the Electoral College finally confirming the USA will soon have a new president.

It’s been a long and hard four years, not least for the climate. In fact, I’d argue that it’s on the issue of climate change that the result of this presidential election will have the most significant global impact.

The world has watched in abject horror as Trump’s team has methodically rolled back US environmental policies. Around 100 environmental regulations, covering everything from car fuel standards to methane emissions and light bulbs, have been loosened or erased.

To Trump, environmental regulations are simply obstacles to energy production and job creation.

As part of a wider retreat from liberal internationalism, Trump also withdrew the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement, the international pact meant to limit the global rise in temperature.

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With the US previously having been a global leader on tackling climate change, this blow has stalled progress on international efforts to reduce emissions and prompted others, such as Brazil and Saudi Arabia, to push back against attempts to strengthen climate commitments.

During Trump’s presidency, we’ve lost precious time in our fight against climate change. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere have reached record highs. With Joe Biden about to take office, I believe we have the opportunity, and the obligation, to step up and finally start treating climate change as the existential threat that it is.

With plans for the US to become a net-zero emitter by 2050, President-elect Joe Biden’s environmental ideas for America are welcome, ambitious and progressive. From energy to transport to sustainable homes, his plan would not only benefit the US but would go a long way to keeping global temperatures down. I’m sure the international community will enthusiastically welcome back the US under a climate-friendly Biden administration.

However, I find it hard to see how the United States could step back into the climate leadership role it previously held under President Obama when he helped to forge the Paris Agreement. I’d argue that, instead of a single leader, whether that be the US or another country, we need a competitive partnership of nations from across the world to drive forward progress on tackling climate change. Scotland is well-placed to contribute to such a partnership.

During his campaign, Mr Biden confirmed that reversing the decision to pull-out of the Paris Climate Accords would be one of his first acts as president. As the first UN Climate Change Conference to occur since Trump’s ousting and the US’s rejoining of the pact, all eyes will be on the COP26 conference in Glasgow next year, putting Scotland at the centre of attention for combating climate change.

Here in Scotland, we have already won international respect for our ambition and leadership on climate change, with the UN climate change secretary describing the work of the Scottish Government in this field as “exemplary”.

We have consistently bested the climate and environment polices of the UK Government. Scotland has outpaced the rest of the UK in carbon reduction, having reduced Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions by almost half from the 1990 baseline.

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Our world-leading climate change legislation sets a target date for net-zero emissions of all greenhouse gases by 2045. This legally binding target we’ve set ourselves is five years ahead of the date set for the UK as a whole.

Scotland is a global leader on “climate justice”, a notion which recognises that the poor and vulnerable at home and overseas are the first to be affected by climate change, and will suffer the worst, yet have done little or nothing to cause the problem. We have placed people and human rights at the centre of our approach to climate change.

To this end, in 2012, the Scottish Government launched the world’s first dedicated climate justice fund to help tackle the effects of climate change in the poorest, most vulnerable countries. By 2021,

£21 million will have been distributed through the fund. In my view, COP26 offers Scotland an opportunity to solidify its place as a global leader in the fight against climate change.

With the United States due to rejoin international climate and environmental efforts under Biden, the global community must use this opportunity to come together and drive forward concrete progress on tackling climate change. Scotland has a lot to contribute to that discussion.