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Arguing the "science is undeniable" when it comes to the threat
climate change poses, President Joe Biden announced a new goal 22
April of halving the US economy's GHG emissions compared with 2005
by 2030.
The White House said this new target would allow the US to meet
its 2015 Paris Agreement climate commitments by "building on
progress to-date and by positioning American workers and industry
to tackle the climate crisis."
The 50-52% target nearly doubles the nationally determined contribution
(NDC) of 26-28% in GHG emissions cuts -- compared with 2005's
7.423.03 billion mt of CO2-equivalent (CO2e) -- that President
Barack Obama set in March 2016 a few months after joining the
global climate treaty, according to a White House fact sheet on the
plan.
An NDC is a country's contribution under the treaty and is
updated every five years to show the progress made in meeting GHG
cuts.
Obama's NDC, however, was rendered void in November after
President Donald Trump left the treaty, leaving Biden with a clean
slate to start afresh.
The White House issued the fact sheet highlighting the plan
ahead of Biden's speech at the Leaders Climate Summit, which will
run through 22 and 23 April.
The steps the US takes now will limit global warming to a
maximum 1.5 degrees Celsius by midcentury, Biden said, alluding to
the Paris treaty's goal.
"We must get on the path now ... we can breathe easier,
literally, and figuratively," he added.
Climate change poses an existential threat, but the White House
said responding to this threat offers an opportunity to support
good-paying union jobs, protect public health, and advance
justice.
"The United States is not waiting, the costs of delay are too
great, and our nation is resolved to act now," the White House
added.
The White House said the 50-52% target would be achieved via
multiple pathways. The cuts would be achieved through weaning the
country away from fossil fuel-based power generation, which remains
the greatest source of CO2 emissions, by deploying carbon
pollution-free generation from renewables, transmission, and energy
storage as well as "leveraging the carbon pollution-free energy
potential of power plants retrofitted with carbon capture and
existing nuclear."
The US would also reach this target by limiting methane
emissions from new, existing, and abandoned oil and natural gas
wells, hydrofluorocarbons, and other short-lived climate
pollutants, it said.
The 50-52% is predicated on congressional approval of Biden's American Jobs Plan, and his $14
billion federal spending request to boost investment in clean
energy technologies and climate programs. It also builds on the GHG
emissions reductions that state and local governments have already
achieved through their own actions.
"Building on and benefiting from that foundation, America's 2030
target picks up the pace of emissions reductions in the United
States, compared to historical levels, while supporting President
Biden's existing goals to create a carbon pollution-free power
sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions economy by no later than
2050," the White House said.
Whole of government
According to the White House, a National Climate Task Force,
which Biden established when releasing his climate blueprint on 27
January, developed the target by using a whole-of-government
approach, and relying on a detailed bottom-up analysis that
reviewed technology availability, current costs, and future cost
reductions, as well as the role of enabling infrastructure in every
sector.
The White House said the task force would release a detailed
national climate strategy analysis later this year.
Ahead of the Leaders Climate Summit, a World Meteorological
Organization report on climate released 19 April showed 2020 is on
a path to surpass the Paris treaty's goal of limiting temperature
increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius when compared with pre-industrial
levels.
The report's findings prompted UN Secretary General António
Guterres to sound the alarm and to urge countries to act now to
limit global emissions to 45% below 2005 levels by 2050.
At the Biden summit, Guterres called for a creation of a global
coalition committed to net-zero emissions that would cover all
countries, cities, regions, businesses, and financial
institutions.
Countries should "stop financing and building coal-fired power
plants" by 2030, he added.
New interim goal for Japan
Also participating virtually in the summit were the leaders of
China, India, Japan and the Russian Federation, who, along with the
US, make up the world's top five GHG emitting nations.
However, neither China nor India announced any change to their
climate ambition, though China has promised to work with the US to
help other countries decarbonize. India too has signed an agreement
with the US to promote resilience and green infrastructure.
China is aiming for a peak in its carbon emissions in 2030 and
to achieve net carbon neutrality before 2060, while India wants to
install 450 GW of renewable power by 2030, a goal most analysts
have said is ambitious as the country remains heavily reliant on
coal-fired generation.
President Xi Jinping said China is strictly limiting coal-fired
generation in its just released 14th Five-Year Plan and intends to
phase it out completely in the next five-year plan.
Japan, in contrast, provided an update on its NDC with an
interim goal of achieving 46% GHG cuts compared with 2013 levels by
2030, which Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said would be "an
ambition aligned with its net zero by 2050 goal."
Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin also did not discuss
an updated net-zero goal other than its already announced target of
reducing its GHG emissions by 70% compared with 1990 levels by
2030. Putin did point out though that it is imperative to tackle
emissions of methane, which is far more potent GHG than CO2.
'Important signal'
As with any climate announcement, the new US target had its
detractors and supporters at home.
The sustainable investor network represented by Ceres, along
with a host of business and labor groups, as well as a number of
environmental groups, had sought this target.
"The Biden administration NDC sends an important signal to the
world. We can only meet our long-term climate goals if we begin
taking ambitious action today," said Bob Perciasepe, president of
the US-based Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a nonprofit
that seeks non-partisan climate solutions.
However, Perciasepe added that "the urgency of this moment" will
require leadership and collaboration between the Biden
administration and Congress to provide crucial support to state and
local governments as well as the private sector in the coming
decade.
To that end, US Senator Tom Carper, Democrat-Delaware, who
chairs the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said
he is working on writing laws, including "a transportation
infrastructure bill, that will drive down dangerous emissions,
tackle the climate crisis head-on, and build a stronger future for
us all."
In contrast, a US environmental nonprofit, the Center for
Biological Diversity (CBD), said the goal "wasn't simply enough" to
tackle the climate emergency and that Biden should immediately put
an end to fossil fuel use.
"Solving the climate crisis requires applying both science and
equity," Jean Su, CBD energy justice director, said in an emailed
statement. "On both counts, the US -- the largest historic polluter
and one of the wealthiest nations -- must do its fair share and cut
domestic emissions by at least 70% by 2030."
Investment opportunity
While the announcement put an end to speculation about the goal
Biden would announce, analysts at IHS Markit began analyzing this
target in terms of investment opportunities.
A clear 2030 target that leverages the American Jobs Plan and
the accompanying tax blueprint could be a roadmap for investors and
asset managers who have been looking for "clear price signals on
carbon" from the administration, IHS Markit Cleantech Executive
Director Peter Gardett said in a 21 April note.
According to Gardett, the key number to monitor will be the
emissions cuts that the Biden administration attributes to the
cleantech and climate infrastructure aspects of the American Jobs
Plan, which he said will give investors modeling an
emissions-constrained operating environment two important pieces of
information.
"The emissions reduction number would let investors derive a
dollar-per-ton metric for avoided emissions that can be
incorporated into future cost projections," Gardett wrote. "It also
would indicate the anticipated size of the US carbon market that
remains after the scale of the [American Jobs Plan]-linked
reduction is factored into the total emissions cut goal."
What mix of projects and assets would benefit was unclear as
yet, Gardett said, as the fate of the jobs and tax plans remain in
the hands of the US Congress, and especially the US Senate, where
Democrats command a razor-thin majority.
Geopolitical impact
Others who view US global climate policy through a geopolitical
lens questioned the Biden administration's strategy for achieving
these targeted cuts.
Among those questioning the Biden administration's global
climate strategy was Anatol Lieven, a senior research fellow on
Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft
who a year ago published a book on "Climate Change and the
Nation State:The Case for Nationalism in a Warming
World."
In a 21 April interview with IHS Markit, Lieven said US
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's climate speech a few days
earlier was "not very helpful" because it was linking the American
quest to lead the global climate change fight to a rivalry with
China in the renewable sphere.
"I can't understand the messy political logic of the Biden
administration using rivalry as a spur for domestic reform and
innovation spending," Lieven told IHS Markit.
On the one hand, "we say that climate change is an existential
threat, but it seems actually in terms of spending and intention we
think that sand bags in the South China Sea are more important;
rivalry with China to defend US global hegemony is more important;
and even who controls coal fields in Eastern Ukraine is more
important," Lieven said.
He said the US spends $800 billion a year on military
expenditure, which is twice as much what the Biden administration
has said it wants to spend on infrastructure and climate programs
in the next four years.
The fact is, uncontrolled climate change will destroy the US as
well as China and India, he said.
In contrast, Jennifer Turner, director of the China Environment
Center at the Washington DC-based Wilson Center viewed the
competition between China and the US as the one area where the two
countries have indeed cooperated despite tensions over human
rights, trade, and security issues.
"Even after saying China would not expand its Paris CO2
reduction commitments, President Xi did agree to attend the Biden
administration's Leaders Summit on Climate Change," Turner said.
"This is very encouraging, but not surprising, as climate has been
one arena of cooperative competition between the two."
Turner said China remains the largest investor in clean energy
technology, a fact Blinken also highlighted in his speech, but in
the past year, its provinces have built new and unneeded coal-fired
power plants to help stimulate jobs and the country's Belt and Road
Initiative also remains focused on carbon-intensive projects.
However, Lieven was quick to note that India also remains
coal-intensive, though not at the same pace as China.
Both Lieven and Turner agreed though that the Biden
administration has to make up for the ground the US lost during the
past four years of climate inaction.
Posted 22 April 2021 by Amena Saiyid, Senior Climate and Energy Research Analyst