Using a pen from his new desk in the Oval Office, President Joe Biden drew the United States into the Paris Climate Agreement, an international agreement that experts say is critical to slowing planetary emissions of heating greenhouse gases. The executive order – the third of 17 executive orders or actions taken on his first day in office – means US officials are now beginning to calculate a new target for the country’s total carbon emissions by 2030.
This goal, in turn, requires federal, state, and corporate decision-makers to set new standards for factories, cars, and power plants to use cleaner energy to achieve this goal – while possibly motivating and the punishment for reducing overall energy consumption is offered by all US residents
If these climate measures were not enough, Biden also canceled an order to release the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, which could bring crude oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, equivalent to the amount of oil it produces, refines and burns. Carbon dioxide from 35.5 million cars per year. Another directive signed Wednesday restricts federal agencies from preventing a previous crackdown on former President Donald Trump federal laws that restrict the emission of methane emissions from powerful greenhouse gases from oil and gas drilling operations. To revise vehicle fuel consumption and emission standards to update device and building performance standards.
Biden, along with his Major and Hero dogs, has a large team of climate change specialists, including new senior climate advisers at the State Department, Treasury and Transportation, as well as at the National Security Council and the Vice President’s Office. Gina McCarthy, former director of the Environmental Protection Agency, will be appointed head of the White House’s new climate policy office. Former Secretary of State John Kerry will be Biden’s new international climate envoy. The New York Times reported that David Hayes, a former deputy interior minister, was selected as Biden’s special assistant on climate policy.
Experts say the first day measures will put the United States on a better path to combating climate change at home and abroad. “The Paris Declaration is really important because it brings the United States back to global dialogue,” said Jake Schmidt, executive director of the International Program on the Natural Resources Defense Council. “This means that Biden can also use US influence to lead other countries to take more aggressive action on climate change. We have claimed that we must have a foreign policy for the first time.”
Schmidt says the approach may be effective in negotiations with countries such as Mexico or Brazil, two nations where current populist leaders have blocked investment in renewable energy (Mexico) and strengthened deforestation (Brazil). If any country wants to secure its trade agreements with the United States, it must ask them to make climate change in return. Smaller countries, meanwhile, are looking to select Biden as a return to normalcy and hope to make progress on climate change, especially in countries that are feeling the heat of rising sea levels and rising tropical storms.
But experts also warn that there are many obstacles ahead. Trump’s four years were marked by disregard for science, undermining environmental regulations, and outright denial of the dangers of climate change. In fact, one of Trump’s initial executive actions was to announce the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement, which the United States joined in 2016 under then-President Barack Obama. (The exit process began in 2019 and became official on November 4, 2020 – a day after Trump lost his re-election bid.)
And despite Biden’s quick start, the earth will warm up in the next decade as lawmakers and policy experts debate how to reduce oil addiction in society. In fact, according to data released by federal scientists last week, 2020 was either equal to or in second place for the hottest year on record. This is a dangerous trend that climate scientists say will continue even if carbon emissions are stopped today.
Still, Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris Agreement means that the United States, at least along with other nations, will take the least steps to lift the curse of climate change, a human-caused human catastrophe that leads to more frequent and more powerful storms. Do childishly. Drought and heavy rainfall all over the planet. “With the United States coming in and saying, ‘We’re still in this business, and we’re going to be actively involved now,'” said Janine Felson, a research fellow at the Sustainable Society Institute at the University of Melbourne. Commitment is important. Climate negotiator for the unification of the small islands of the island. “We know that we have only a decade to change the situation to warm the world to 1.5 degrees.”
This is a number that scientists say should not be exceeded until 2050 to prevent the worst effects of climate change. “Right now, at least we hope things don’t go that well,” says Felson.
Representatives of the 190 signatories to the Paris Agreement are scheduled to meet in Glasgow, Scotland in November for the next round of talks on the implementation of the Paris Agreement, known as the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. This is where members of the Biden administration set their sights on climate change in 2030, where nations are pushing each other to keep their green promises. “I think of Paris as a system of institutionalized pressure on peers,” said Elliott Diringer, executive director of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a non-partisan think tank based in Washington, DC. “With the world’s largest economy, not outside, this system has a better chance of success.”
That said, Paris’ goals are voluntary and rely on the accurate reporting of each nation. If they do not do their part, no one will be punished or kicked. Diringer says Biden’s ambitious domestic policies are needed to reduce the success of greenhouse gas emissions, but they must also resist any political change in Congress or the White House. “The biggest challenge is to gather bipartisan support in Congress,” said Diringer, a former senior White House council adviser on environmental quality in the Clinton administration. “These policies are not only ambitious; they have to be sustainable. They have to stick.”
During his presidential campaign, Biden came up with the idea of reviving the Civilian Protection Corps, a depressed agenda, but updated it as a climate workforce that could deal with problems such as forest management and Fight fire prevention. He also said his goal is for the US energy sector to become carbon neutral by 2035, and for the rest of the US economy to lag behind by 2050.
Diringer says Biden’s team has a lot of work to do to break that down and see if it can be done. “It’s important that the goal is both reliable and achievable,” says Diringer, as well as taking into account state and city weather plans. A considerable amount of quantitative analysis, and a dose of political judgment, will be made as to how far we can go in the next four years to achieve these policies.”
BY: Mike Newhell
