U.S. President Joe Biden is set to announce Thursday a new goal of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 50-52% by 2030 as he holds a virtual global summit on climate change.
The U.S. target is relative to 2005 levels, and the White House says efforts to reach it include moving toward carbon pollution-free electricity, boosting fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, supporting carbon capture at industrial facilities and reducing the use of methane.
A Biden administration official told reporters in a briefing Wednesday that with the new U.S. target and those set by Japan, Canada, Britain and the European Union, “in aggregate, major economies accounting for more than half of the world’s economy will now have committed to the pace of emission reductions required globally to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.”
World leaders agreed to limit global warming to below 2C in the 2015 U.N. Paris climate agreement, and to aim for 1.5C.
Averaged over the entire globe, temperatures have increased more than 1.1 degree Celsius since 1980. Scientists link the increase to more severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms and other impacts. And they note that the rate of temperature rise has accelerated since the 1980s.
Thursday’s summit is part of Biden’s efforts to restore U.S. leadership after the dismissive attitude toward the issue of his predecessor, Donald Trump. In 2015, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement, a step Biden reversed shortly after taking office.
“The United States is not waiting, the costs of delay are too great, and our nation is resolved to act now,” the White House said in a statement ahead of the summit. “Climate change poses an existential threat, but responding to this threat offers an opportunity to support good-paying, union jobs, strengthen America’s working communities, protect public health, and advance environmental justice.”
An administration official told reporters in a briefing Wednesday that Biden was expected to highlight “the big economic opportunity and the big job creation potential that tackling the climate crisis represents.”
More than two dozen world leaders are set to speak during the summit Thursday, which is also Earth Day.
Among those planning to give their views are United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Xi will deliver an “important speech” at the conference, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying.
Xi’s views could weigh heavily on future global efforts to control climate change since China remains the world’s largest greenhouse polluter, with 28% of the world’s emissions, more than twice the second-worst polluter, the United States.
Xi’s acceptance to speak at the summit comes days after John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy on climate change, held talks last week with his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, in Shanghai.
The White House said Wednesday it does not expect Biden to hold bilateral meetings with any of the other world leaders.
Xi’s appearance is his first with Biden since the latter took office in January, and it comes amid increasing tensions between the two economic superpowers over a host of issues, including Beijing’s tightening control on semiautonomous Hong Kong and its brutal treatment of ethnic Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province.
But the two countries have apparently found common ground on reducing climate change, with greenhouse gases directly linked to climate change.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro is asking the United States for $1 billion in economic assistance in exchange for cutting deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 40%.
Putin, in his annual address to the Russian government on Wednesday, said he is setting a goal of reducing Russia’s greenhouse emissions below European Union levels in the next 30 years and plans to increase fines for industrial polluters.
“If you profited from the nature, clean up after yourself,” Putin said as he referenced massive toxic spills in the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions of Siberia last year.
The European Union also announced ahead of the summit an agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 55% — compared to 1990 levels — by 2030. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the commitment, which includes targeting zero net emissions by 2050, “our binding pledge to our children and grandchildren.”