President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he will strengthen the United States’ climate target by aiming to cut the planet’s pollution by 61 to 66 percent by 2035, a move his successor is sure to ignore.
The new target marks an increase over Biden’s 2021 pledge to cut greenhouse gases 50-52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, but is a downgrade from what modelers say would have been possible under a future president acting aggressively to slow rising temperatures.
President-elect Donald Trump has indicated the opposite.
Instead, the target will likely be jettisoned after Trump comes to power, reflecting his promises to expand fossil fuel production and dismantle Biden’s climate agenda.
While the new administration could simply ignore this goal, the target provides an ambitious milestone that states, cities and businesses can strive for, even as the Trump presidency attempts to roll back federal climate programs.
“President Biden’s new 2035 climate goal is a reflection of both what we have already accomplished … and what we think the United States can and should achieve in the future,” said John Podesta, White House senior adviser for international climate policy, in a speech. calling reporters.
The move comes amid increasing pressure on the Biden administration to make urgent environmental commitments in the final days of the president’s term, even if Trump has no plans to fulfill them. U.S. officials say it sends an important signal to the world about what the U.S. could do in the face of these challenges.
“American industry will continue to invent and invest. State, local, and tribal governments will continue to accelerate their efforts,” Biden said in pre-recorded video remarks for the announcement.
It also includes at least a 35 percent reduction in methane, a short-lived but potent greenhouse gas that the Biden administration wants to address as a priority through regulations and global agreements.
“We are looking to governors, mayors, business leaders and more to continue this important work,” Podesta said.
The targets – known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs – are required under the Paris Agreement, the global agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in the post-industrial era. The White House said it is formally submitting the new target to the United Nations Climate Secretariat. Trump is expected to withdraw from the agreement.
‘A North Star’
Observers argued that the new target demonstrates the ability of the world’s largest economy to tackle climate change without federal help.
“The 2035 climate target can serve as a North Star for states, cities and companies committed to climate action,” Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement.
Other advocates echoed that sentiment, saying it could help guide federal policy beyond 2028 — or whenever a climate-focused president takes office.
“The 2035 emissions reduction target is at the lower end of what the science calls for, and yet it is close to the upper end of what would be realistic if almost all available policy instruments were deployed,” said Debbie Weyl, acting U.S. director of World Resources Institute.
A fact sheet released with the announcement said climate pollution cuts could be achieved through a combination of surviving Biden-era policies; stronger state and local action; and technological advances such as cheaper wind and solar energy, nuclear power and electrical grid upgrades.
But achieving those numbers won’t be easy.
A bipartisan effort in Congress to relax permitting rules, which could speed renewable energy installation, has not yielded results. The Biden administration on Wednesday approved California’s plan to phase out gas-powered cars by 2035, but Trump has threatened to reverse the plan.
Members of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of mostly Democratic states, are on track to cut greenhouse gases by 26 to 28 percent next year — but the U.S. is not on track to meet Biden’s original goal of cutting emissions in six months. reduce.
‘No one hides the ball from that. Our analysis makes it very clear that additional action is needed to reach our 2030 target, but there is a clear path to do so,” said Casey Katims, executive director of the U.S. Climate Alliance.
Meeting the new target will also depend on private sector investment. The clean energy tax credits in Biden’s signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, have freed up billions of dollars for clean energy production in the US.
Yet many of those policies are under threat from Trump and Republicans in Congress, who have targeted government rebates used to lower the cost of purchasing electric cars and other clean energy incentives.
“Even the talk of repeal and adjustments or cuts has a chilling effect, slowing and reducing the pace and scale of investment,” said Zach Friedman, senior director of federal policy at Ceres, a corporate sustainability group. “Adjustments to tax credits, timelines, restrictions, etc. will have major impacts on the amount of investment coming back to America’s communities.”
Aim high
Before the election, modeling from the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability showed that the U.S. could achieve a 65 to 67 percent emissions reduction by 2035. Studies by other groups showed similar range.
That would put the country on track to reduce emissions to zero by 2050. But achieving that goal depends on additional action at the federal, state and city levels.
An updated policy brief published this week by the Center for Global Sustainability projects cuts of 54-62 percent based on no further federal action, but more at the state level.
Senior administration officials who called reporters to preview the announcement said such analyzes show it is possible to reduce pollution without aggressive federal action — though they acknowledged that would be more difficult.
“The pace is obviously an issue,” one official said.
Robbie Orvis, senior director of modeling and analytics at Energy Innovation, said: “Achieving the proposed target would certainly require states to strengthen and implement policies in many states at a level we have not seen before.”
Other analyzes looked at some possible worst-case scenarios.
Energy Innovation estimates that U.S. emissions would fall by only 36 percent by 2035 if the Inflation Reduction Act is fully repealed. The Rhodium Group predicted a range of cuts from 24 to 40 percent based on a rollback of federal climate regulations and a total repeal of the Inflation Reduction Act. Neither analysis takes into account additional action at the state level.
Analysts say the Inflation Reduction Act is unlikely to fully unravel, especially as its benefits expand nationwide.
But even with the Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. has still fallen short of its 2030 goal of cutting emissions by 50 to 52 percent — Biden’s original goal. A July analysis by the Rhodium Group found that the U.S. is on track to reduce 32 to 43 percent of climate pollution by 2030, putting the country on track to a 38 to 56 percent reduction by 2035.
Biden “set a milestone” with the new goal, said Alden Meyer, a senior fellow at the environmental think tank E3G.
“Everyone understands that it will be very difficult to achieve this goal, as Trump will take us off the field for the next four years,” Meyer said. “But they understand it for what it is – what the US should be doing.”
