As he prepares to leave office, President Joe Biden has submitted a new U.S. emissions-reduction target to the U.N., committing the country to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions economywide by 61 to 66% below 2005 levels by 2035.
Knowing that President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement again, the Biden administration used the announcement of the new goal on Dec. 19 as a call to action for the states, cities and businesses that continued their efforts to reduce GHG emissions during Trump’s first term.
Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement on his first day in office in 2021. As he has throughout his four years in the White House, he linked action on climate change “to more good-paying jobs, more affordable energy, cleaner air, cleaner water [and] healthier environments for everyone.”
“It is also creating real momentum because we’re unleashing American ingenuity and innovation,” the president said in a statement. “American industry will keep inventing and keep investing. State local, and tribal governments will keep stepping up.”
White House Senior Adviser John Podesta was similarly “confident in America’s ability to rally around this new climate goal because, while the United States federal government may put climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief.”
During a media briefing on Dec. 18, Podesta recalled the surge of subnational climate action that emerged in the wake of Trump’s first withdrawal from the Paris Agreement in 2017. One example was the formation of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of 24 governors committed to enacting state policies to reach net-zero emissions economywide by 2050.
Following Biden’s announcement, the alliance committed its members to the new 2035 goal.
“President Biden’s bold leadership is keeping us on a path to achieve a clean energy economy, and together, the country’s climate-leading governors will carry the torch forward,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), co-chair of the alliance. “This new collective goal will serve as our North Star, guiding us in the years to come and keeping America on track toward a cleaner, safer future.”
“The only thing clearer than the science and impacts of climate change is the benefit of taking action ― and we’re not slowing down,” agreed Hochul’s co-chair, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D). “By continuing to stamp out climate pollution together, we’re safeguarding public health, protecting the environment, growing the economy and creating good jobs across the U.S.”
The White House said it will submit the new target to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat as the U.S.’ nationally determined contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement. Signed by 196 nations in December 2015, the agreement commits the nations to cutting emissions to limit the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
As part of its NDC, the U.S. would also cut its methane emissions by 35% by 2035, which the White House said “is among the fastest ways to reduce near-term warming and is an essential complement to CO2 emissions.”
The White House noted “there are multiple paths to meeting these targets, and U.S. federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments have numerous tools available to work with civil society and the private sector to mobilize investment in the years ahead.”
A recent study from the University of Maryland, College Park found that with a whole-of-society approach that includes “enhanced ambitions,” the U.S. could achieve a 65% reduction in emissions by 2035. But the report anticipated that without federal support, emission reductions of only 48 to 60% might be achieved, highlighting “the impact that non-federal actors can still have despite uncertainties at the federal level.”
The NDC itself has yet to be released, but the announcement raised questions about the current state of U.S. and global climate action following Trump’s election victory and the contentious 29th U.N. Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan.
While advocates continue to talk about “keeping 1.5 alive,” global emissions and temperatures continue to rise. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said 2024 has been the hottest year on record, with 2023 now in second place.
The U.N.’s 2024 Emissions Gap Report called for a global reduction in GHG emissions of 42% by 2030 and 57% by 2035 or “the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-C goal will be gone within a few years.”
Speaking on background, a senior administration official noted that the U.S. is currently on track to reduce its emissions 45% by 2030, falling short of the 50 to 52% target Biden set for the U.S. in his 2021 NDC. But the new NDC would confirm a U.S. commitment to the consensus reached in 2023 at COP28 on a “just, orderly and equitable” transition away from fossil fuels in this decade.
The final agreement at COP29 avoided any action on that consensus, but the official noted that the U.S. NDC acknowledges that the country could take multiple pathways to accelerate decarbonization across the economy, while continuing to increase private sector investments.
The White House also consulted with cities, states and tribes, integrating an analysis of their goals into the NDC, a second senior official said. Echoing Gov. Hochul, the official said the NDC is intended as an impetus to cities, states and others to raise their ambitions on climate policy and action.
The new NDC almost certainly will be quickly discounted by Trump and the Republicans who will control both houses of Congress in a matter of weeks, and much uncertainty surrounds the fate of Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
Trump campaigned on a pledge to claw back unspent funds from the laws, and some congressional Republicans are already taking aim at specific provisions of the IRA, such as its $7,500 electric vehicle tax credits, to help pay for extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of 2025.
At the same time, those laws have built “a complementary architecture of federal standards that spur demand and generate the regulatory certainty needed to accelerate capital formation and encourage entrepreneurial risk-taking. It is an important combination that has changed the equation” on climate action, National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi said.
They have also channeled billions in federal dollars and private investment into Republican states and districts, a fact continually raised by Democrats hoping to defend the law’s tax credits and clean energy incentives.
The White House is stressing by-now familiar arguments that the U.S. clean energy transition has hit a tipping point, and its economic and technical momentum will continue, regardless of who’s in the Oval Office. As one of the senior officials said, what will likely change with Trump is the pace and the level of ambition.
