This past Thursday was Earth Day. For me, it was marked by the start of the US’s climate summit and a local presentation I helped give on carbon pricing for people in my town. With carbon pricing being the local talk’s theme, it was a nice synchronism to have multiple world leaders at the climate summit, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand, push for the same policy.
The summit was also nice because it marked a return of an America with a plan, a set of goals, when it came to the world’s greatest issue: climate change. If you missed it, the Biden Administration announced that it would aim to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to a level 48-50% what they were in 2005. No longer are we, federally, abject, or in the position of indifference to what our future emissions may look like. They are no longer blowing freely in the wind, no longer a matter of happenstance. Instead, they are a matter of political efficacy.
The fact that we once more have a plan in place to address emissions is good in and of itself; but, it is of more importance whether or not that plan is a good one and whether or not it will be achieved. To that end, the ambition of the plan, the reduction it wants to reach, is grand. A 50% reduction by 2030 is in line with plans to reach net-zero by 2050, which has been the IPCC baseline to avoid more than 1.5° C of warming (our current best-best case scenario).
Then comes assessment of the plan in terms of how it will achieve that ambition. Unfortunately, there is not a significant amount of detail articulating how this reduction will be realized, at least in terms of specific, planned initiatives. The announcement of the goal includes general points of focus, like reducing carbon emissions in the transportation sector and increasing the carbon sink potential of forests, but it does not include what specific legislation and actions will be taken to meet these ends. While this may be understandable for the initial unveiling of “our generation’s moonshot,” it is still unfortunate.
That is not to say, however, that progress has not started or that specific plans do not exist. Clean energy initiatives have begun, onlookers have theorized how such a plan will unfold, and government arms like the Department of Energy have announced some specifics. This is all great, but a detailed framework of how we will achieve 50% by 2030 and 100% by 2050 is still wanted.
While we look forward to, and keep pressure up for, such an itinerary, it is important to appreciate that we are in a better place. The world’s largest economy and 2nd largest GHG emitter taking an explicit stand on climate action is immensely valuable. Many world leaders expressed as much during the climate summit. There is decades of work ahead, but let’s be happy to revel just a bit in the successes, too.