By VOA News
Saying the world must “overcome the existential crisis of our time,” U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new goal of cutting U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 50 to 52% by 2030 as he kicked off a virtual global summit on climate change with dozens of other world leaders.
“This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis,” said Biden, calling on others, in particular the world’s largest economies, “to step up.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised Biden’s announcement as “a game-changer,” saying “it will have a transformative impact in the global fight against climate change.”
The U.S. target is relative to 2005 levels, and the White House says efforts to reach it include moving toward carbon pollution-free electricity, boosting fuel efficiency of cars and trucks, supporting carbon capture at industrial facilities, and reducing the use of methane.
Addressing the summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping said his country will strictly control coal consumption in the next several years and will “phase down” the fossil fuel during the 2026-2030 period. Xi also reiterated China’s pledge to peak carbon emissions before 2030.
India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, while pledging no new goals, did announce a partnership with the United States for a 2030 clean energy agenda “to help mobilize investment, demonstrate clean technology, and enable green collaborations.”
The United Nations secretary-general, Antonio Guterres, told the summit: “We need a green planet — but the world is on red alert. We are at the verge of the abyss. We must make sure the next step is in the right direction. Leaders everywhere must take action.”
A Biden administration official told reporters in a briefing Wednesday (April 21) that with the new U.S. target and those set by Japan, Canada, Britain, and the European Union, “in aggregate, major economies accounting for more than half of the world’s economy will now have committed to the pace of emission reductions required globally to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.”
World leaders agreed to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius in the 2015 U.N. Paris climate agreement, and to aim for 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Averaged over the entire globe, temperatures have increased more than 1.1 degree Celsius since 1980. Scientists link the increase to more severe heat waves, droughts, wildfires, storms and other impacts. And they note that the rate of temperature rise has accelerated since the 1980s.
The two-day summit is part of Biden’s efforts to restore U.S. leadership after the dismissive attitude toward the issue of his predecessor, Donald Trump. In 2015, Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement, a step Biden reversed shortly after taking office.
There is skepticism about the U.S. commitment announced Thursday by Biden. The Washington Post newspaper in an editorial published the same day, said while the president’s promise is a big one, delivering will be much harder.
“The United States will require new transmission lines to send electricity from where the wind is blowing and the sun is shining to where it is not,” said the newspaper’s editorial board. “Huge amounts of new wind, solar and, potentially, nuclear and hydropower infrastructure must be built in a short time, and fossil fuel plants must be forced offline before their natural retirement dates. The electrification of vehicles is an even larger challenge. All this will require tremendous amounts of public and private investment.”
Brazil’s leader, Jair Bolsonaro, is asking the United States for $1 billion in economic assistance in exchange for cutting deforestation of the Amazon rainforest by 40%.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his annual address to the Russian government on Wednesday, set a goal of reducing Russia’s greenhouse emissions below European Union levels in the next 30 years and plans to increase fines for industrial polluters.
“If you profited from nature, clean up after yourself,” Putin said as he referenced massive toxic spills in the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions of Siberia last year.
The European Union also announced ahead of the summit an agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions at least 55% — compared to 1990 levels — by 2030.
“It will certainly not be an easy task,” Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga told the summit as he announced a new goal for his country that some environmental groups found disappointing.
“The Japanese government has raised its 2030 emissions reduction target to 46% from 2013 levels, but this is a paltry move compared to the large increases in reduction targets by other countries and it has dampened the reduction efforts of the international community,” said Greenpeace Japan in a statement. (VOA)/JBB-jlo
