File:Earth Day 2021 - Climate Summit News-1.jpg

Earth Day 2021 Climate Summit

April 2021

AP sources: Biden to pledge halving greenhouse gases by 2030

(Washington Post/April 20) President Biden this week will pledge to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at least in half by the end of the decade, according to two individuals briefed on the plan, as part of an aggressive push to combat climate change at home and convince other major economies around the world to follow suit... The planned U.S. pledge represents a near-doubling of the target that the nation committed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, when Barack Obama vowed to cut emissions between 26 and 28 percent compared to 2005 levels.

The Biden Team

Biden’s most senior White House climate aides are all former managers of large agencies... David Hayes, now White House climate adviser... Jane Lubchenco, deputy director of Biden's science office... John Kerry, Gina McCarthy.... then there's Michael Regan at EPA, Deb Haaland from New Mexico's Laguna Pueblo now at Interior, Jennifer Granholm at the Energy Department... and Pete Buttigieg who ran for president as a climate champion now running the Transportation Department. There's Gina Raimondo and Marty Walsh as Commerce and Labor secretaries. Raimondo pushed America's first offshore wind farm as governor of Rhode Island and Walsh, former mayor of Boston, took over the Climate Mayor's coalition. Tom Vilsack at Agriculture is promising climate will be one of his top priorities this time around. And Brian Deese with the National Economic Council is talking how to move the business community on climate issues. Ron Klain, Biden's chief of staff, is known for his climate positions.... a diverse array, as Politico describes them of "next generation voices from the world of advocacy, philanthropy, think tanks and government have moved to... powerful roles throughout the Biden Administration."

Jen Granholm explains how she sees it: “I’m completely obsessed with creating clean energy jobs, and Joe Biden is obsessed, too. There’s definitely an all-in ethos on this team.”

President Biden's emissions target stated for the virtual climate summit of 40 national leaders will signal how aggressively Biden wants to move on climate change. The target Biden chooses “is setting the tone for the level of ambition and the pace of emission reductions over the next decade," said Kate Larsen, a former White House adviser who helped develop President Barack Obama’s climate action plan. Whatever emissions reduction target Biden picks, Larsen said, the climate summit itself “proves the U.S. is back in rejoining the international effort? to address climate change.

The summit is “the starting gun for climate diplomacy” after a four-year “hiatus” under Trump, she explained. The emissions target has to be achievable by 2030 but aggressive enough to satisfy scientists and advocates who call the coming decade a crucial, make-or-break moment for slowing climate change. Predicted is a target that would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.

- "Clearly the science demands at least 50% in reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 2030", said Jake Schmidt, a climate expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council. A 50% target "is ambitious, but it is achievable", Schmidt said. "People know what 50% means — it’s half."

- "The science is clear: we are in a climate emergency," said Laura Berry, Climate Clock research lead, in a press statement. "With its deadline and new lifeline, the Climate Clock makes explicit the speed and scope of action that political leaders must take in order to limit the worst impacts of climate devastation."

- “This is a crucial early moment, and it’s a moment for the U.S. to shine, to show it’s really committed,” said Rachel Cleetus, policy director of the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “This is a moment not just for rhetoric about leadership. We have to lead by example.”

- "Let’s stop talking about 2050," said Biden’s senior climate adviser, Gina McCarthy, who is leading White House efforts to develop U.S. climate commitments for 2030. Climate activists should focus on strategies and actions now in this decade McCarthy said at a forum last week.

(NYT) When Mr. Biden asked her to join his White House, Ms. McCarthy said she was initially reluctant. But when he embraced much of the rhetoric and policies of the party’s left, she was won over.

“When President, then candidate, Biden made the connection between climate and health and environmental and racial justice, and he framed it in terms of what needed to be done after the pandemic for job growth, it just — it owned me,” McCarthy said. “It got me out of the drudgery of climate always being a planetary burden and a horrible potential future and brought it into a framing that to me, energized it.”

(As head of the Environmental Protection Agency) she said she poured enormous effort into creating Obama-era rules that could pass muster with the courts and ease into effect, only to watch them undone by Trump-era climate rollbacks that were slapped together, rife with spelling and math errors, and then promptly bogged down in court.

“It was almost embarrassing,” she said. “It was naïve. It was so poorly written. It had political statements in it. It was just outrageous.”

There was, however, some comfort in that. “I knew there was no way this would stand the test of time,” she said. “I knew that it could be rebuilt.”

Ms. McCarthy’s friends say she is driven to build back a climate legacy that will outlast her second round in government.

(Associated Press) A 50% target, which most experts consider a likely outcome of intense deliberations underway at the White House, would nearly double the nation’s previous commitment and require dramatic changes in the power and transportation sectors, including significant increases in renewable energy such as wind and solar power and steep cuts in emissions from fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

Anything short of that goal could undermine Biden’s promise to prevent temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, experts say, while likely stirring up sharp criticism from international allies and Biden’s own supporters.

Nathaniel Keohane, another former Obama White House adviser and now a vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said experts have coalesced around the need for the U.S. to reduce emissions by at least 50% by 2030.

“The number has to start with 5,” he said, adding, "We’ve done the math. We need at least 50%."

_______________

• https://apnews.com/article/biden-emissions-goals-climate-summit-c02ea56b944d01c812644900fce803e7

• https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/the-whole-atmosphere-has-changed-china-s-ambitious-plan-to-solve-the-climate-puzzle-20210401-p57fwq.html

• https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/18/us-china-agree-to-tackle-climate-crisis-with-urgency

• https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/18/politics/us-china-climate-change-shanghai-intl-hnk/index.html

• https://www.vox.com/2021/4/19/22386142/earth-day-biden-china-united-states-climate-summit-india-brazil-russia-paris-agreement

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-18/u-s-china-say-they-will-cooperate-to-tackle-climate-change

• https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/trump-biden-climate-change-john-kerry-b1833323.html

• https://www.axios.com/us-climate-change-credibility-paris-targets-5dad0a97-4fb8-4324-8372-76632fcd12b8.html

• https://www.npr.org/2021/04/18/988493971/u-s-china-agree-to-cooperate-on-climate-crisis-with-urgency

• https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/18/politics/john-kerry-climate-change-joe-biden/index.html

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/19/us-embarks-huge-climate-reset/

• https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-04-18/biden-carbon-reduction-paris-climate-targets-global-warming-cop26

• https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/19/biden-global-climate-summit-new-emissions-target-us-china-cooperation.html

• https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/548801-for-a-win-on-climate-lets-put-our-best-player-in-the

○

President Biden Invites 40 World Leaders to Leaders Summit on Climate

• https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/26/president-biden-invites-40-world-leaders-to-leaders-summit-on-climate/

The President invited the following leaders to participate in the Summit:

Prime Minister Gaston Browne, Antigua and Barbuda

President Alberto Fernandez, Argentina

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Australia

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh

Prime Minister Lotay Tshering, Bhutan

President Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada

President Sebastián Piñera, Chile

President Xi Jinping, People’s Republic of China

President Iván Duque Márquez, Colombia

President Félix Tshisekedi, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Denmark

President Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission

President Charles Michel, European Council

President Emmanuel Macron, France

President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Gabon

Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India

President Joko Widodo, Indonesia

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel

Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Italy

Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Jamaica

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, Japan

President Uhuru Kenyatta, Kenya

President David Kabua, Republic of the Marshall Islands

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand

President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria

Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Norway

President Andrzej Duda, Poland

President Moon Jae-in, Republic of Korea

President Vladimir Putin, The Russian Federation

King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore

President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Spain

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey

President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, United Arab Emirates

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, United Kingdom

President Nguyễn Phú Trọng, Vietnam

○