Linking carbon emission reductions with economic recovery and job creation, President Biden opened his virtual Leaders Summit on Climate by committing the U.S. to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52% from 2005 levels economywide by 2030. Such ambitious targets and urgent action are needed, Biden said, if countries around the world are to meet the goals many have set to be carbon neutral by 2050.

“Scientists tell us that this is the decisive decade. This is a decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of a climate crisis. We must try to keep the earth’s temperature to an increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Biden said. “Each of us, each country, can set higher climate ambitions that will in turn create good paying jobs, advance innovative technologies and help vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts.”

The new target doubles the 25% target former President Barack Obama set in 2015, when the U.S. signed onto the Paris Agreement on climate change, but lengthens the commitment timeline. Obama’s original target year was 2025.

Biden also committed the U.S. to doubling annual public climate financing to developing countries by 2024 and to ending international investments in fossil fuel generation.

As outlined in a White House fact sheet released ahead of the summit, Biden’s strategies for meeting the 50% emissions reduction target closely parallel the policies and programs in his $2 trillion infrastructure package. Emissions reductions will be achieved through decarbonizing the electric grid by 2035, electrification of buildings and transportation and the development of green hydrogen and carbon capture technologies, along with leveraging U.S. forests and agricultural lands to create “nature-based” carbon sinks. (See Biden Infrastructure Plan Would Boost Clean Energy.)

The plan is the result of a sector-by-sector, bottom-up analysis, said National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy, speaking at a White House press briefing after the summit. “We see multiple pathways across all sectors, across all policy levers, across federal and state and local actions to grow our economy and to reduce our emissions,” McCarthy said.

Biden had framed the summit as a warm-up for the U.N. Climate Change Summit, scheduled for Nov. 1-12 in Glasgow, and re-establishing U.S. leadership on global climate action.

Former President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement last year; Biden rejoined on his first day in office.

“On Jan. 19, we were nowhere; we were in deficit with respect to our [climate] efforts,” said Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, who also spoke at the post-summit press briefing. “We now have [countries representing] 55% of global GDP committed to levels of reductions that keep faith with holding the earth’s temperature at 1.5 degrees.”

He noted that all 20 of the countries with the largest GHG emissions were at the summit, and several echoed Biden’s call for urgent action.

“We need to move quickly to implement the commitments for 2030; a plan of action that is clear, measurable and verifiable,” French President Emmanuel Macron said. “Basically, 2030 is the new 2050.”

Similarly, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said, “The climate commitments we make now will determine our chances of tackling climate change effectively in the next decade and beyond. We want to act now, not to regret it later.”

‘Carbon must have its price.’

The diplomatic limitations of the virtual event were clear with Biden, Kerry and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken masked and socially distanced at a circular conference table facing a large screen where one by one, international leaders appeared to make statements, in some cases, prerecorded.

Each country’s climate actions were highlighted, and new higher commitments announced. For example, Japan upped its GHG reduction goal from 26% from 2013 levels to 46 to 50% by 2030; and South Korea announced it would be terminating its overseas investments in coal. The day before the summit, the European Union passed a mandate to cut emissions by 55% from 1990 levels by 2030.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said carbon pricing was a key part of the EU plan. “We will make emissions trading work, not only for energy generation and industry, but also for transport and for buildings,” she said. “Carbon must have its price because nature cannot pay the price any longer.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada’s emissions reduction plan also includes a “world-leading price on pollution. … In 2030, our carbon [pricing] will reach $170/ton.”

Trees-for-citizenship Swap

The Paris Agreement’s commitment for developed countries to provide $100 billion a year to finance climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said.

“So far, only 18 to 24% of pandemic recovery spending is expected to contribute to mitigating emissions, reducing air pollution or strengthening natural capital,” Guterres said. “The trillions of dollars needed for COVID-19 recovery is money we are borrowing from future generations. We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden them with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.”

Guterres called for a phase-out of coal by 2030 in the wealthiest countries and by 2040 elsewhere, and he said multinational development banks should more than double their investments in resilience and adaption before the Glasgow summit.

“Developed countries must deliver on public finance,” he said.

While reiterating China’s intention to peak climate emissions before 2030 and restrict new coal-fired generation, President Xi Jinping called for a commitment to “common but differentiated responsibilities” between developed and developing economies.

It is, he said, “the cornerstone of global climate governance. We need to give full recognition to developing countries’ contribution to climate action and accommodate their particular difficulties and concerns.”

Leaders from developing countries in Central America, the Caribbean and Africa were more specific.

Small island nations may not be able to access international aid financing because of per capita income requirements, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne said. “This requires action to design new and innovative instruments and debt relief, including debt cancellation, debt suspension, debt restructuring and debt-for-climate swaps,” he said.

Debt-for-climate swaps allow a country debt relief in return for specific climate actions. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador suggested a more radical swap for Mexicans participating in the country’s massive tree planting program — a U.S. work permit and eventual citizenship. The program is intended to incentivize the planting of fruit trees and timber in rural areas, but in some instances it may be resulting in deforestation, according to a recent report from Bloomberg.

Electric Bills and Jobs

Biden’s ability to deliver on a range of climate goals remains uncertain. His infrastructure package, the American Jobs Plan, faces strong opposition from Republicans in Congress, where the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate may not be able to guarantee passage. Arguments from both sides of the aisle are based on appeals to basic economic issues — electric bills and jobs.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, was quick to label Biden’s commitment “drastic and damaging.”

“The last thing the economy needs is higher energy prices and fewer jobs, but that’s exactly what we’re going to get,” he said.

Democrats and clean energy advocates were just as quick to applaud the stepped up-goal and echo Biden’s efforts to link emission reductions with clean energy jobs.

“This commitment provides us an opportunity to empower our workers with new, good paying jobs in manufacturing, construction and clean energy that can’t be shipped overseas,” said Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “It will also allow us to prioritize the needs of our environmental justice communities, and revitalize our energy communities with the jobs and security they both need and deserve.”

“The renewable energy sector already employs hundreds of thousands of Americans and is poised to do its part in the transition to a carbon-free grid, a step that will create millions of additional good-paying jobs while saving money for consumers and preventing the worst impacts of climate change,” said Gregory Wetstone, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy.

Reporters at the White House pushed McCarthy and Kerry on exactly how Biden would be able to meet his carbon reduction commitments when his successor could roll them back with a stroke of a pen.

“No politician in the future is going to do this because all over the world, trillions of dollars, trillions of yen, trillions of euros are going to be heading into this new marketplace,” Kerry said. “Wind and solar had the biggest year they’ve ever had last year, and what we saw last year was continuation of tax credits pass through a Republican-controlled Congress. So, we all know where this is heading. The real question is, do we want to have the courage to grab it?”