War on Warming: USA re-joins Paris Agreement

 

War on Warming:

USA re-joins Paris Agreement

With the current global pandemic, public focus has been pulled away from climate issues with the exception of how coronavirus has reduced our carbon emissions. However, Biden's inauguration brings a new era for climate politics. As of the 19^th February, the USA officially re-entered the Paris Agreement and joined 189 other countries in their fight against global warming, aimed at minimising temperature increase to a maximum of 2°C by 2100. 

Joe Biden. Credit: Ancho

When Obama first joined the Paris agreement at COP21, his main Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26% of 2005 values, by 2025. In January 2017, just 6 months after Trump was sworn in as president, he pulled the USA out of the Paris Climate accord, stating the agreement ‘’handicaps the US economy’’ and puts them at a ‘’permanent disadvantage’’. Negotiations were suggested, but never materialised and when the run for the presidency began in 2020, Biden's manifesto promised to put the US back in the forefront of the worlds battle against climate change.

Previously, Biden's history as a climate change pioneer dates back 35 years, when he introduced one of America’s first climate bills, the Global Climate Protection Act of 1986. Then, in 2009 under the Obama administration, Biden was tasked with implementing The American recovery and reinvestment act, which devoted in excess of $90 billion into clean energy. Additionally, the Clean Power plan, which enforced emissions limits in industrial sectors, was introduced in 2015, though whether its success can be attributed to Biden is questionable. Furthermore, according to the League of Conservation Voters, he now scores an impressive 83% on the Environmental Scorecard, showing his commitment to the climate change movement.

Re-joining the Paris Agreement couldn’t have been better timed. With the delayed COP26 taking place in Edinburgh in November 2021, Biden has yet to submit his new NDC. The ramifications of the union could be momentous. Biden is committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, similar to the UK, meaning that all avoidable CO₂ emissions are to be stopped. To achieve this, he has proposed an investment of more than $5 trillion to endorse clean energy and environmental justice.

Biden will host a Leaders climate summit in April, where speakers from various institutions, including ecoAmerica and The White House, will discuss how climate change is affecting all walks of life and offer climate solutions to take America forward in the war against climate change. Biden is also due to attend COP26 in November and is currently in the process of establishing his countries NDC’s to comply with the Paris Agreement. This is dramatically in contrast to Trump, whose contributions, according to the Climate Action Tracker, were ‘’critically insufficient’’. 

Emission projections for USA 2020 and into the future. Credit: Climate Action Tracker

Bidens promises are high, but he has his critics. Prominent climate sceptic, Bjorn Lomberg, recently labelled Bidens plan as ‘Perfectly useless’. He writes that it is fantastically expensive, spending 13% of Americas entire federal revenue on climate issues, equating to $500 billion. This is seconded by Senator Jim Inhofe who stated on Twitter, ‘the US would be responsible for the majority of reductions’. Worth noting also from the UN Emissions Gap Report 2020, published in December, USA’s emissions growth was an impressive -1.7% deficit in 2019. In reaction, senior fellow of the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center,     Ellen R Ward in Forbes stated that ‘this is evidence…….that the ‘U.S. should just keep doing what it is doing to cut its own emissions’.

Of course, this could all be immaterial. With the Democrats majority being slim, getting his plans through congress may be his biggest challenge.