July 18, 2022 at 6:00 am EDT
Historical US
greenhouse gas
emissions
US emissions
dropped out because
of the pandemic.
President
of Biden
bet
Note: The chart shows the center of a range of projected emissions under current US policies
Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Rhodium Group
Historical US
greenhouse gas
emissions
US emissions
dropped out because
of the pandemic.
President
of Biden
bet
Note: The chart shows the center of a range of projected emissions under current US policies
Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Rhodium Group
Historical US Greenhouse Gas Emissions
US emissions fell
because of the pandemic
but they are designed
to recover before losing weight
over the next decade.
President
of Biden
bet
Note: The chart shows the center of a range of projected emissions under current US policies
Source: United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Rhodium Group
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In 101 months, the US will have delivered on President Biden’s most important climate promise — or it will fail. Right now it’s seriously lacking, and with each passing month it’s getting harder and harder to succeed, until at some point – maybe very soon – it will be virtual impossible. This is true for the United States and also for the planet as nearly 200 nations seek to address climate change with a rapidly diminishing timetable for doing so.
That’s crucial context for the news late last week that Sen. Joe Manchin III (DW.Va.), after months of negotiations with fellow Democrats, is opposing new climate policies. The cited reason for Manchin’s hesitation is raging inflation, which is a serious concern. But there’s always a reason to delay action, and time is unforgiving when it comes to a warming climate.
At the center of the Biden administration’s climate policy is a pledge made in 2021 to cut U.S. emissions by 50 to 52 percent by the end of 2030 — 101 months from this August — below 2005 levels. Achieving that goal will require a major reshaping of the American economy — millions of new electric cars on the road, transformations of key industries to rely more on renewable energy, and possibly millions of jobs focused on making it happen.
Climate legislation making its way through the Senate would accelerate that transition through improved tax credits for renewable energy and electric vehicles, among other energy-related incentives and regulations.
Swift action is needed to maintain consistency with the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. in which nations agreed to take significant measures to avoid levels of global warming associated with severe climate impacts. Scientists in general agree that emissions must be cut roughly in half by 2030 to avoid these outcomes.
The goals remain. But after Manchin’s move, legislation to achieve it appears to have been tabled indefinitely.
“The current official U.S. targets are ambitious,” said John Sturman, an energy policy expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They are also necessary to create a prosperous, healthy climate. And the policies that the administration had proposed—transportation, buildings, etc. – had the potential to take us there.”
“But with Senator Manchin’s position … we’re not going to be able to do that,” Sturman said.
In many ways, in fact, thinking that we have until 2030 to reduce emissions to the target dramatically overestimates how much time there really is. As more time passes, the amount of emissions to be reduced increases in the remaining months. It’s like a ship taking on water – if you wait to start baling, you have to bale faster and faster, and if you wait long enough, at some point you have no chance of reaching shore.
Biden’s goal was already a big success. So far, the United States has reduced emissions by only a fraction of what the administration intends. Emissions in 2005 were 6.6 billion tons of greenhouse gases, and emissions in 2019 and 2020 were 5.8 and 5.2 billion tons, respectively, according to official national figures.
Here’s what President Biden is doing to address climate change
Thus, current reductions from 2005 levels amount to 12 or 21 percent, depending on whether you use 2020 emissions figures (which are the latest official numbers). That’s a real problem, as emissions fell in 2020 due to coronavirus-related shutdowns, but they’re recovering — and no one expects this moment to matter much for the long-term trend.
If we set aside the pandemic and instead continue with what was accomplished in 2019, the Biden administration would still need to reduce emissions by about 2.5 billion tons of greenhouse gases in just over eight years. This is slightly more than the emissions of two Japans or one India.
Still, it was at least as close as possible, analysts say, through a combination of current momentum and politics.
A major part of the goal can be achieved by reversing the ongoing downward trend in emissions, which reflects government policies and actions taken by the private sector, especially the energy industry, to become more sustainable. For example, a recent analysis by the Rhodium Group, a research firm that closely monitors emissions policies, found that the United States is already on track to cut emissions anywhere between 24 and 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
But this is far from enough to deliver on the promise.
The current implosion of negotiations with Manchin “makes it more difficult and makes any further action by the executive branch that much more critical. The stakes are much higher now,” said John Larsen, partner at Rhodium.
Several analyzes show that policies like those contained in the Senate legislation could be about a billion extra tons per year Reducing emissions in the US.
“We estimate that the Senate budget deal is likely to reduce emissions by roughly 800 million to 1 billion metric tons in 2030,” said Princeton University professor Jesse Jenkins, an energy policy expert and modeler.
In Jenkins’ analysis, there will still be a gap, albeit a small one — of hundreds of millions of tons — to meet the Biden administration’s promise.
Somewhat separate from all this is what this means for Earth – after all, every major emitter must act or else every single progress or lack thereof will be debatable.
The Climate Action Tracker, a tool created by a group of scientists to assess emissions progress, rates the US target as “nearly sufficient”. This means that it is consistent if another major emitter acts with similar force, keeping the overall planetary warming to 2 degrees Celsius or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
But it’s not enough to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), which is currently just a few ticks away on the thermometer, the group says.
Two degrees Celsius of warming is serious, and 1.5 degrees is pretty bad too – but noticeably less so in some respects. In a 1.5 degree world, scientists say, there will be little more time for small islands to adapt to sea-level rise. There will be severe damage to coral reefs, but they may still exist in some regions. And the Arctic will still have summer sea ice most or all years — possibly avoiding one of the most dangerous feedback loops that could further exacerbate climate change.
For 101 months, US emissions certainly are will be lower, but the problem has always been the speed of change.
That’s why the death, for now, of climate legislation greatly increases the chance that the United States will not become a target.
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