WASHINGTON – The rest of the world watched for four years with frustration and a sense of irony as the US walked away from the Paris Agreement, the global climate treaty that pushed other countries to join and then suddenly during the Trump administration has abandoned.
As of Friday, the US has been working on the deal again, but has caught up with many to meet its emissions-saving commitments and restore its diminished position on the world stage.
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions that trap heat fell last year, but it was a deviation due to the coronavirus pandemic that is holding back large parts of the economy. As the country bounces back, emissions are expected to rise again, prompting President Joe Biden’s government to find ways to put the US on track to achieve even more ambitious targets needed by scientists to tackle the worst effects of global warming. prevent.
This is especially true when it comes to building American credibility to persuade China, by far the largest emitter in the world, to move faster.
“We need to show that we are not just talking, but also walking,” said Todd Stern, the leading U.S. negotiator for the Obama administration on the 2015 climate agreement. “Our ability to have an impact will start at home. Everyone understands that the United States needs a real overhaul.”
Biden, within hours of being sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, signed an executive order that would give the U.S. back in the climate agreement. It takes thirty days for a country to deliver its paperwork to the UN before its entry into force, a period ending Friday.
As the Biden government seeks to show seriousness of purpose, a careful choreographed series of events on Friday will highlight the formal return of the US to the tough global agreement.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, Biden’s special envoy for climate change, will be at the forefront, officials said. He will appear this afternoon with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and perform with Biden’s inland climate chief Gina McCarthy and his UN climate envoy Mike Bloomberg for a morning event around the “America Is All In” coalition “to launch. city, state, and business leaders who continued to act on climate during the Trump years.
Aiming to show solidarity with European partners and other allies on climate change, Kerry will also attend a special afternoon conference of the Security Conference in Munich and a virtual reception marking the American return hosted by the EU delegation and the embassies of the United Kingdom, Italy, France and Chile. He will ask questions about climate diplomacy during another event with the British and Italian ambassadors.
And Biden is expected to highlight the U.S. move when he joins a virtual group of the Seven Summits on Friday and will promote a world leaders’ climate summit planned by the U.S. for April, with a major focus on climate change by the United States. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. , the G-7’s host.
Officials involved in the government’s climate agenda said the key message the US hopes to send is that the Paris agreement remains intact as it has persisted without other countries following the US outside the door. , announced that the US is out.
In the coming months, the Biden government must also reduce a new target for emissions, known as a nationally determined contribution, which will determine the extent of the country’s ambitious goals over the next decade. Under the Paris Agreement, the commitments, which are reviewed every five years, are not binding, although other parts of the agreement are.
The previous target, set by President Barack Obama, committed the United States to reducing emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025 compared to 2005. In the years that followed, U.S. emissions did indeed decline, in part fueled by steps taken during the Obama administration has been undertaken. to limit emissions from power plants, vehicles and other resources – but not enough.
Early data indicates that the country’s emissions were 21.5 percent lower last year due to the pandemic, according to Rhodium Group, an independent researcher who tracks the emissions data. But in 2019, before the coronavirus swept the world, the U.S. came only half as close to its target, with emissions up 12 percent below 2005 levels, compared to the 26 percent target.
With Trump’s withdrawal from the treaty, the 2025 goal became technically heavy. Biden’s new goal will specify the reduction that the US will try to undertake by 2030.
“In that sense, we are starting anew,” said Nat Keohane, senior vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit group.
The Biden government plans to announce the new target in April, when Biden convenes a world climate summit, several U.S. officials said. In the longer term, Biden has committed the US to achieving net release in the entire economy by 2050, long after he leaves office.
How Biden wants to achieve those goals is an open question. But the efforts are likely to involve a mix of regulations to set stricter emissions limits for vehicles, power plants and industry; incentives to move the US faster towards electric motors and renewable energy; and possibly a market-based mechanism to enforce a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, such as a carbon tax or fee or an emissions trading system.
All that requires a sharp shift in the policies pursued by the Trump administration, which sought to undo Obama-era regulations and provide incentives for economic growth by placing less stringent restrictions on industry.
“Indeed, there has been no contribution from the U.S. government” during the Trump years, Guterres, the UN secretary-general, said Thursday. Yet, he said, the rest of American society, despite Trump, has continued with climate change, positioning the US to be ‘fully on track for the net zero in 2050’.
Other countries are also watching closely to see if the US will meet its commitments to the Green Climate Fund, which is set up to enable poorer developing countries to reduce emissions, by shifting some of the costs to richer countries. which has carried the most in the past. of the blame for climate change. The US has given only about a third of the $ 3 billion promised by the Obama administration; Kerry said the Biden administration will “reimburse” the full amount.
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The US has historically contributed more to global emissions than any other country, but the rapidly evolving China is now leading the world in greenhouse gas emissions and has continued to build coal-fired power stations, just as President Xi Jinping set a goal of China’s emissions by 2060 will be zero.
“It’s not enough for the US to rejoin Paris. We need to start reducing our emissions to put pressure on countries like China, which is still growing,” said Paul Bledsoe, a climate adviser in the Clinton administration, said. a strategic advisor at the Progressive Policy Institute, a nonprofit group.
In the first weeks of Biden’s presidency, the Chinese hawks have expressed concern that eagerness to pursue climate diplomacy with Beijing could be a top priority for Kerry, making Biden’s government softer on other issues, such as trade, human rights and Beijing’s aggressive actions in the region.
Kerry has promised that other national security issues will not be curtailed for the sake of the climate, calling it a ‘critical, independent issue’ he hopes the US can pursue with Beijing, even if relations sour in other areas.