The rebalancing of the US energy sector to natural gas has locked it into a new fossil fuel economy, at the very time that we need breakneck renewable investment. Oncoming carbon regulation, consumer reaction against gas, and the declining price-point of renewables, mean that the US is sitting on a carbon bubble waiting to explode.
One of the real silver linings of 2020, conspicuously absent from the Vox article, is that South Korea, Japan and China all committed to reach net zero emissions by around mid century, while the EU also brought forward it's targets. I would add that the Iranian nuclear deal is now being revived, breaking the power of militaristic hardliners in Iran, and quashing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Note that both were achieved despite the US: it left the Paris Agreement and reneged on its commitment to the Iranian nuclear deal.
As far as I know Biden has not taken any step toward this so far, but many House Democrats are urging him to do so. At the same time though powerful lobbying interests are pushing for the deal to be renegotiated under stricter terms, so I wouldn't count our eggs too early.
More importantly, I would think this is entirely negated by the fact that we just murdered two of their country's most prominent public figures. Diplomatic relations might improve, but I have to imagine that a lot of Iranians would be radicalized by these events and not really care which particular administration is responsible ultimately. Trump might catch the blame, but these type of targeted killings in Iran of scientists and other civilians go back much further than just the last term.
Iranian contempt for the United States is nothing new. It didn't block an agreement in both party's interests last time, and it doesn't have to now.
the future is not extract resources until a lucky few can escape to space, it's to fight together for climate goals (US failed here) and find a way for humanity to live sustainably with what we have.
So far, none of the catastrophic predictions from the last ~70 years have come to fruition. Actually, none of the catastrophic predictions from the last 2000 years have.
We will adapt.
Thus far, every reasonably scientifically based prediction for the past two decades has consistently been conservative.
The IPCC has existed for about 30 years now. We are now starting to have data to compare their climate reports with. Independently of how you look at the data, we are mostly tracking the worst expected outcome. Everyone has a duty to do this for themselves. All the data is public.
2013: "Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert" begins Allan Savory in this quietly powerful talk. And terrifyingly, it's happening to about two-thirds of the world's grasslands, accelerating climate change and causing traditional grazing societies to descend into social chaos." https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vpTHi7O66pI
2014: Global Greening Is Firm, Drivers Are Mixed - Harvard "Evidence for global greening is converging, asserting an increase in CO2 uptake and biomass of the terrestrial biosphere. Evidence for these trends comes from firm empirical data." http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015AGUFM.B31A0515K
2016: Greening of the globe and its drivers - Nature "Satellite records from 1982–2009 show a persistent and widespread increase of leaf area (greening) over 25% to 50% of the global vegetated area, whereas less than 4% of the globe shows decreasing leaf area (browning)." https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
Elevated CO2 as a driver of global dryland greening - Nature "Recent regional scale analyses using satellite based vegetation indices such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), have found extensive areas of “greening”" https://www.nature.com/articles/srep20716
Rise in CO2 has 'greened Planet Earth' http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36130346 "Prof Judith Curry, the former chair of Earth and atmospheric sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, added: "It is inappropriate to dismiss the arguments of the so-called contrarians, since their disagreement with the consensus reflects conflicts of values and a preference for the empirical (i.e. what has been observed) versus the hypothetical (i.e. what is projected from climate models)."
I see this as far too demanding for everyone, and far too short for viable alternatives to come up to be a realistic target. On the other hand, this year has shown that people are far more prepared to make huge sacrifices for what we think is the greater good than I would have expected just a year ago.
As for climate change, just let it happen. It will happen anyway because if someone reduces their carbon footprint they only leave money on the table for others to grab - and those others will produce MORE carbon for the same amount of goods produced, because their energy efficiency is lower - so any attempts to "fight for climate goals" is destructuve and counterproductive.
Just do a fair assessment of future climate changes and proceed with regulatory actions to mitigate them (for example, ban any new capital construction on land which will be flooded in case of 4C temperature rise).
No technology victory is ever final and complete, especially not between nations. What we have done can be copied. China has shown itself to be really good at copying, and they have some really smart people. They certainly can do it, if they choose to.