Joe Biden’s New Climate Pledge Isn’t Fair or Ambitious
President Joe Biden has announced a new emissions reduction plan. It doesn’t do nearly enough to address the US’s climate impacts on the rest of the world.
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks and participates in the virtual Leaders Summit on Climate from the White House in Washington, DC, 2021. (Jim Watson / AFP via Getty Images)
On Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that the United States will cut emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 as part of its commitment to the 2016 Paris Agreement on climate change.
Biden’s announcement came during the administration’s virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, which aimed to push climate action around the world.
A key goal of the summit was “to keep a limit to warming of 1.5 degree Celsius within reach.” A 2018 special report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that global greenhouse gas emissions need to drop by 50 percent by 2030 to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.
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