Happy Earth Day, climate pilgrims. What have you done for your planet lately?
It's show-and-tell day at the White House as Biden hosts a virtual summit on climate.. Will it convince the world that America can be trusted again? Probably not.
Welcome to EarthWatch, an environmental news and opinion newsletter for people who think you should never turn your back on Mother Earth—written by me, Jerry Bowles, an ancient scribbler who has been around the Sun a few times and doesn’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
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The White House will mark Earth Day by welcoming 40 heads of state to its Virtual Leaders Summit on Climate Thursday and Friday. Speakers include all-around fun guy Vladimir Putin, Brazil’s own Ron DeSantis, Jair Bolsonaro and China’s President Xi Jinping. Pope Francis is on the bill and, of course, Bill Gates will be there urging people to get vaccinated which we all know is a ruse to implant a microchip into your arm. Let’s hope there are no Jeffrey Toobin moments.
Biden is widely expected to pledge to cut U.S. climate pollution to 50% of 2005 levels by 2030, which is why I expect him to make it 60 percent. Biden has proven to be adept at having people misunderestimate him.
The goal, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), under the Paris Agreement, would nearly double the cuts targeted by the Obama-Biden administration in 2015. Some groups, notably Friends of the Earth and Sunrise Movement, are urging him to make it 70 percent by 2030. Reflecting the fact that the U.S. needs to seriously step up its game after four years of maldirection by the Great Orange Climate Cretin, Ed Markey (D-Mass) said in a statement:
“The United States must be an undeniable global leader in climate action. We cannot preach temperance from a barstool and not pay our fair share when approximately 40% of all the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is red, white and blue.″
Other countries and regions will also be unveiling new NDCs at the summit. British PM Boris Johnson has agreed to a new target to reduce national emissions by 78 percent by 2035, as part of the Sixth Carbon Budget. Its goal for 2030 is to reduce emissions by 68 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.
Notably, the new target will include and international aviation and shipping which had been only accounted for emissions on a “territorial” basis in previous budgets and therefore only included those emissions within the UK’s borders.
The European Union, meanwhile, reached a tentative deal to make its pledge of being ‘climate neutral by 2050’ a legal commitment. If it does so, the EU would aspire to the same target listed in their updated NDC to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change in 2020, of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent from 1990 levels through 2030. Their previous commitment was a 40 percent target.
Biden has acted quickly and aggressively on the climate front in his first 100 days. In addition to rejoining the Paris Accord, he has cleverly hidden climate initiatives within his larger legislature packages, including the already passed American Rescue Plan stimulus and the now being debated American Jobs Plan, which is heavy on climate policy although it’s been sold as an infrastructure bill.
A major emphasis of the infrastructure plan is transportation, which is the biggest source of carbon emissions in the U.S. today. The Biden plan aims to speed up the transition to electric vehicles by funding states and the private sector to build 500,000 electric vehicle chargers.
The plan contains money to revive public transit, which should help keep toxic cars off the roads. It allocates $85 billion toward repairing existing buses, light rail, and other transit lines. And, of course, some of the funds will also go to maintaining roads and highways although not nearly enough to please Republicans.
The plan proposes establishing a Clean Electricity Standard for the power industry, America’s second biggest polluter, that would require utilities to increase their share of clean electricity. Along with the expanded 10-year tax credits for renewable energy, it might be enough to get to 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035, assuming that it gets passed.
Biden’s biggest challenge with this summit will be convincing skeptical world leaders that America is really back in the game and willing to put some real skin and money into the transition to a carbon-free future. That will be heavy lift. American leadership has become so erratic and unpredictable in recent years that it may never be trusted again for a very long time. What happens if the Republicans take the Senate and regain the House in 2022? What happens if a Trump impersonator gets elected president in 2024? After four years of we’re going to build a great wall and Mexico is going to pay for it and I won the election in a landslide, who believes anything Americans say anymore?
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Dig Deeper
Leaders Summit on Climate: Schedule (State Department)
Earth Day Live (Earth Day.org)
Here’s how Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure plan addresses climate change (CNBC)
'We are taking the lead': Boris Johnson significantly strengthens UK's 2030 carbon target (BusinessGreen)
An updated link: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: U.S. International Climate Finance Plan https://bit.ly/3tISps9