Virtual Earth Day

President Biden on Thursday declared “America has resolved to take action on climate change,” and the White House said it would substantially increase the money it offers to developing countries to address the issue.

Mr. Biden formally pledged that the United States would cut its emissions in half by 2030, double the amount of money it offers to help developing countries, and compel the private sector to cement clean energy policies into reality. “No politician,” Biden said, at yesterday’s Virtual Earth Day conference, “can change what is now happening in the marketplace.”

At Home and Abroad

The two-day summit comes at a time when scientists are warning that governments must take decisive action to prevent global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. The consequences of exceeding that threshold includes mass species extinctions, water shortages and extreme weather events that will be most devastating to the poorest countries triggering mass migrations.

The summit is the first of its kind to be convened by a United States president, and Mr. Biden is joined by 40 world leaders like Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. These nations, in particular, all belong to the Paris Climate Agreement and are obligated to announce their new targets for emissions cuts in time for a United Nations conference in Scotland in November. But in an executive order announced late Thursday morning, ahead of the conference, the White House also said it would “seek to end investments in carbon-intensive fossil fuel projects abroad.” Acknowledging that no country alone would be able to finance the transition to a green economy, Biden proffered an eerily autocratic remark. “Private banks and asset managers will have to align their investments accordingly.”

While the summit is international, Mr. Biden’s speech was also aimed at a domestic audience, focusing not just on America’s obligation to help cut its global emissions but on the jobs he believes are available in greening the U.S. economy. “The countries that take decisive actions now to tackle climate change,” Mr. Biden said, “will be the ones that reap the clean energy benefits of the economic boom that’s coming.”

Our Carbon Free Future

Researchers like Nathan Hultman, the director of the University of Maryland’s Center on Global Sustainability has modeled possible paths for countries like the U.S., Canada and Japan to achieve a 50 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. The changes would be radical:

◦ By 2030, half of the country’s electricity would come from renewable sources such as wind, solar or hydropower, up from one-fifth today.

◦ New natural gas plants would be built largely with technology that can capture carbon dioxide instead of releasing it into the atmosphere — technology that is still in its infancy.

◦ Virtually all of the 200 remaining coal plants in the U.S. would shut down unless they, too, can capture their emissions and bury them underground.

◦ By 2030, two-thirds of new cars and S.U.V.s sold would be battery-powered, up from roughly 2 percent today.

◦ All new buildings would be heated by electricity rather than natural gas.

◦ The nation’s cement, steel and chemical industries would adopt stringent new energy-efficiency targets.

◦ Oil and gas producers would slash emissions of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, by 60 percent.

◦ The nation’s forests would expand, and farming practices would be reworked, so that they pull 20 percent more carbon dioxide out of the air than they do today.

The Fine Print

Beyond all the verbiage and political show of support lies some rather poignant fine print. (Executive Order 14008, signed January 27, 2021). This Plan – the first of its kind in the U.S. government – focuses on international climate finance and refers to the provision or mobilization of financial resources to assist developing countries to reduce and/or avoid greenhouse gas emissions and build resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Embedding environmentalism into U.S Foreign Policy will effectively dictate the way in which international banks are able to trade, invest, and otherwise conduct business with their foreign counterparts. In this, the U.S. President Joe Biden brings a practical touch to his Leader’s Summit on Climate and a tactical approach to a Virtual Earth Day.