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The election of Joe Biden as US president could reduce global warming by about 0.1 ° C, putting the goals of the Paris agreement “at a surprising distance”, if his plans are fulfilled, according to a detailed analysis. .
Biden’s policy of a goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, and plans for a $ 1.7 trillion investment in an ecological recovery from the Covid crisis, would reduce U.S. emissions in the next few years. 30 years in approximately 75 gigatons of carbon dioxide or its equivalents. Climate Action Tracker calculations show that this reduction would be sufficient to avoid a temperature rise of approximately 0.1 ° C by 2100.
However, Biden is likely to face stiff opposition to many of his proposals, from the Republican party at the national and state levels, while his room for maneuver will be limited by the performance of the Democrats in the Senate. If there are legal challenges to his plans, they will be decided by a strongly conservative supreme court.
The United States is the world’s largest economy and the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, but Donald Trump reversed the measures taken by Barack Obama to reduce greenhouse gases and rejected the Paris agreement on climate change, which requires nations to keep global warming well below 2 ° C. with an aspiration to limit the temperature rises to 1.5 ° C.
Trump’s stance left the United States increasingly isolated among the major economies. In recent weeks, Chinese President Xi Jinping surprised the world by pledging to achieve net zero emissions by 2060 and have emissions peak by 2030. That would be enough to reduce the projected temperature rise in the world. from 0.2C to 0.3C. according to Climate Action Tracker.
Japan has also recently backed a net zero target, as has South Korea, and the EU has its £ 1 trillion green deal. If Biden’s promises were to be kept, that would mean that economies that produce more than half of global carbon emissions have a publicly stated commitment to achieving net zero emissions by around 2050.
This adds to the potential for a “historic tipping point” in the climate, according to Climate Action Tracker. The US and Chinese pledges would be enough to reduce global warming to around 2.3 ° C or 2.4 ° C by the end of the century. That is around 25-40% of the effort required to limit heating to 1.5 ° C, the goal the Paris agreement is aiming for.
The 2015 Paris climate agreement is the first truly global agreement to address climate change. Commits governments to limit temperature increases to no more than 2 ° C (3.6 ° F), which scientists say is the safe threshold, beyond which the effects of global warming are likely to become catastrophic and irreversible, and to make efforts to limit the increase in temperature. at 1.5C. It has been signed by 197 countries. The United States is on its way to becoming the only country outside the agreement if it keeps Donald Trump’s promise to leave.
Bill Hare of Climate Analytics, one of the partner organizations on the Climate Action Tracker, said: “This seems like a historic turning point: with the election of Biden, China, US, EU, Japan, South Korea – two-thirds of the world economy and more than 50% of global greenhouse gas emissions – have net zero greenhouse gas emissions for mid-century commitments. These commitments are very close to, if not within, trajectories consistent with 1.5 ° C for this set of countries and, for the first time, put the 1.5 ° C limit of the Paris agreement at a surprising distance. “
Biden has vowed to rejoin the Paris agreement and invest in low-carbon technology that would put the US on the path to drastically reducing emissions in the next decade.
Rejoining Paris will be a boost for international climate action, but domestically, the president will face a deeply divided nation and may find it difficult to push forward his climate plans. Many states, cities, and local governments are signed up to strong climate action, although some face legal challenges in doing so.
Under the Paris agreement, all countries are required to submit strengthened national commitments, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), every five years to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which means that new NDCs stipulating new 2030 targets are due by the end of this year. Biden won’t be able to meet that deadline, but will be under pressure to draft a US NDC in time for the postponed UN climate summit, Cop26, which was scheduled to start on Monday but will take place next November due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden will face stiff opposition from some business interests and Republican climate skeptics emboldened by four years of Trump’s presidency. This can make it impossible to carry out the full emission reduction policies that Biden approved in his presidential campaign.
However, if the United States takes a clear stance on climate internationally under his presidency, the impact will be far greater around the world than just the contribution of its own emissions reductions, experts say. The influence of the United States is such that it would have a multiplier effect on other economies.
“America is leading the world in this direction that will be most important,” said Todd Stern, who served as the United States special envoy on climate change under Obama. “If you have the United States, the EU and China working together, you can expand to the whole world. It’s not just about US national broadcasts, but about the US position as a world leader. “
Paul Bledsoe, Clinton’s former White House climate adviser now a professor at American University in Washington, said Biden could also pressure other countries to take faster action on the road to the 2050 goal. “Biden intends to reviving the Paris process and much more, likely committing the US to a net zero emissions target by 2050, while targeting more aggressive targets by 2030, not just for the US, but forcing China as well. and other issuers to a more serious 2030 goals, “he said. “These are just the beginning of what promises to be an extraordinarily ambitious international climate agenda from Biden, which seeks to recapture time from the lost years of Trump and prevent climate destabilization.”
To take advantage of the initiative, Biden should quickly set a path toward steep emissions cuts by 2030, said Nat Keohane, senior vice president of climate at the Environmental Defense Fund. “This is not just about getting the United States back into the Paris agreement, but about a credible and ambitious goal for 2030,” he said. “The Paris agreement is no longer about an agreement, but about meeting commitments and increasing [countries’] ambition. Having the United States back in the game rather than on the sidelines is vitally important. “
