US President-elect Joe Biden has suggested that his administration's foreign policy will focus on global cooperation, in a significant shift from the "America first" approach of President Donald Trump.

Biden also referred to his choice of John Kerry as the presidential envoy on climate change.

"America is ready to stand up for our values", Joe Biden said.

The picks underline an emphasis on professionals whom Mr Biden already knows well, in contrast to the Trump White House, where officials were often picked without having traditional background for the job.

"And it's a team that reflects the fact that America is back, ready to lead the world, not retreat from it".

But Mr Biden's transition team hailed the president-elect's selection as a group of "crisis-tested leaders", be ready to hit the ground running in the new administration.

Pennsylvania and Nevada certified the November 3 election results on Tuesday, a day after the state of MI did so, a move which triggered the General Services Administration (GSA) to launch the transition process. And that will be my charge as director of national intelligence. Now, if that's beginning to sound a little familiar, that is because Biden's top foreign policy picks all bring with them a serious sense of deja vu.

The overwhelming majority of climate scientists strongly disagree with Trump, and have urged political leaders to take quick action so as to avert a catastrophe that they say is unfolding before our eyes and will only get worse as carbon emissions and global temperatures continue to rise.

"The outreach has been honest", Biden said. In an essay published a year ago, Mr. Sullivan said the United States must reassert its global role, but in new ways: It must fashion "a different kind of leadership, giving others a greater voice along with greater accountability".

"I think Inslee's isn't credited enough with how much he shaped Biden's thinking", Fahrenthold said.

He said his team would pursue the belief "that America is strongest when it works with its allies".

The slate unveiled by Biden includes veterans of the Barack Obama administration and signals a return to traditional U.S. diplomacy and multilateralism.

"I'm pleased to have received the ascertainment from GSA to carry out a smooth and peaceful transition of power, so our teams can prepare to meet the challenges at hand, to control the pandemic, to build back better and to protect the safety and security of the American people", he said.

"We need to be working with other countries, we need their cooperation, we need their partnership".

The speech comes a day before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday, a time when millions of Americans typically gather with family, many traveling in order to do so.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks at an event in December 2016. The successor nominated by Mr. Biden, Avril D. Haines, is a thoroughgoing professional who served as the CIA's deputy director and as deputy national security adviser under President Barack Obama.

Cuban-born Alejandro Mayorkas was named to head the Department of Homeland Security, whose policing of tough immigration restrictions under Trump was a frequent source of controversy.

Jake Sullivan, a Biden foreign affairs adviser, was named as Biden's national security adviser.

Ms Haines, if confirmed in the Senate, will be the first woman to hold that post.

The legal efforts have fallen flat, however, along with the attempts to delay state certification.

The staffer is likely to be far from the only out figure in a senior White House role. "Their only goal is to delay the inevitable".