In the last month, as COVID - 19 cases and hospitalizations rose and president Joe Biden made his abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden has attempted to turn the nation's attention back to climate change, repeatedly warning America that the clock ticks.
In the last two weeks alone, the Department of Energy announced that the country could be generating 40 percent of the nation s electricity from solar in the next 15 years. The White House announced on 17 Sept. a joint commitment with the European Union to reduce emissions from methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by nearly a third in 2030. Three days later, on Monday, the Administration announced new efforts to protect workers from extreme heat. And Biden himself has hit the road to promote his ambitious Infrastructure Package as an opportunity for climate change. This is a decisive decade. The clock is ticking for the Biden team. The Administration urgently needs to convince the world that the U.S. is committed to tackling climate change — and convince others to come along for the ride – before critical United Nations climate talks will take place in November in Glasgow, Scotland. We will measure every way that we can reduce our emissions, John Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate science, told a gathering of U.S. mayors earlier this year. We have to lay out a roadmap so that everybody can understand it s not a phony, empty promise. Biden s climate messaging blitz — part behind-the scenes policymaking and part global public relations campaign — began in the early days of his presidency. Against a backdrop of growing COVID cases, Biden signed an executive order one week into his tenure and directed federal officials to integrate climate considerations into economic and foreign policy. The administration immediately started planning for an Earth Day climate summit to show world leaders together and bring back the U.S. climate conversation after years of antagonism from the Trump administration on the issue.
This summit is our first step on the road we'll travel together, Biden said at the April summit to set our world on a path towards a secure, prosperous, and sustainable future. At that meeting, the Biden administration set a goal of cutting all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% by 2030. Since then, as other news stories have dominated headlines, the White House has sought to prove that the U.S. can achieve its target in a steady stream of announcements: new rules on the risk climate change poses to financial institutions, push for climate investment via multi-trillion dollar infrastructure package and new regulations to move the country to electric vehicles or clean engines.
The sprint has had a significant effect on the U.S. climate talks, but the global policy that comes over the next six weeks may be the most crucial? The world is watching to see if the U.S. can actually commit more than 10 years of commitment from developed countries to spend $100 billion annually to fund climate initiatives in developing countries, a move that would help convince nations like Brazil, South Africa and India to increase their global climate targets to boost their economy.
Similarly, the passage of a multi-trillion dollar infrastructure package with strong climate components could convince world leaders that the next government can not simply undo the Biden Administration's climate work. We are very in disagreement about the goals, melle I told Emily Haber, the German Ambassador to the U.S., during a panel discussion in June. Mais we still need to underpin the goals with projects, policies, specific strategies and that s where we are right now. How the U.S. positions itself ahead of the UN Climate Conference could be pivotal to reigniting the global climate conversation as momentum to put forward new policy-level plans to reduce emissions has largely slowed. An analysis of the latest United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - organ responsible for global climate talks — on Sept. 17 : it was found that the world is on track to see 2.7 C of warming with the current emissions reduction commitments from governments around the world, a far cry from the previous target of 1.5 C.
Kerry remained our best hope in April, says Glasgow, to coalesce the world in the right direction. The next six weeks are the last chance for the U.S. to do its part to get Glasgow on track.