Biden Commits to halve US emissions by 2030

US President Joe Biden will announce a new target for the country to achieve a 50-52% reduction in economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution in 2030.

The target, which bases the reduction from 2005 levels, builds on progress to date and positions American workers and industry to tackle the climate crisis.

America’s 2030 target picks up the pace of emissions reductions, compared to historical levels, while supporting Biden’s existing goals to create a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050, the administration said.

The announcement – made during the Leaders Summit on Climate that Biden is holding – is part of the US president’s focus on “building back better”.

Biden has fulfilled his promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement and as part of re-entering he also launched a whole-of-government process, organised through his National Climate Task Force, to establish this new 2030 emissions target – known as the “nationally determined contribution”, a formal submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Today’s announcement is the product of this government-wide assessment of how to make the most of the opportunity combatting climate change presents.

To develop the goal, the administration analysed how every sector of the economy can “spur innovation, unleash new opportunities, drive competitiveness, and cut pollution”.

The target builds on leadership from mayors, county executives, governors, tribal leaders, businesses, faith groups, cultural institutions, healthcare organisations, investors, and communities who have worked together tirelessly to ensure sustained progress in reducing pollution in the US.

Meeting the 2030 emissions target will create millions of “good-paying, middle class, union jobs”, including line workers who will lay thousands of miles of transmission lines for a clean, modern, resilient grid and engineers and construction workers expanding carbon capture and green hydrogen to make cleaner steel and cement.

The target is consistent with the president’s goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by no later than 2050 and of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, as the science demands.

The US will meet the 2030 target in a number of ways. It has set a goal to reach 100% pollution-free electricity by 2035, achievable through building renewable energy sources, transmission, and energy storage and leveraging the carbon pollution-free energy potential of power plants retrofitted with carbon capture and existing nuclear.

Other approaches include addressing carbon pollution from industrial processes by supporting carbon capture as well as new sources of hydrogen—produced from renewable energy, nuclear energy, or waste—to power industrial facilities.

The US Government can use its procurement power to support early markets for these very low- and zero-carbon industrial goods.

The US will also reduce non-CO2 greenhouse gases, including methane, hydrofluorocarbons and other potent short-lived climate pollutants. Reducing these pollutants delivers fast climate benefits.