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John Kerry Says U.S. Will Work With China on Climate Change Despite Conflicts
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January 27, 2021
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2:24Now PlayingIn what would be the most ambitious U.S. effort ever to stave off the worst effects of climate change, President Joe Biden is aiming to cut oil, gas and coal emissions and double energy production from offshore wind turbines through executive orders Wednesday.
The orders awaiting his signature target federal subsidies for oil and other fossil fuels and halt new oil and gas leases on federal lands and waters. They also intend to conserve 30 percent of the country's lands and ocean waters in the next 10 years and move to an all-electric federal vehicle fleet.
Biden's White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy and Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry, spoke to reporters Wednesday before the president signed the new orders.
Biden has "already committed the U.S. to re-enter the Paris Climate Agreement and he committed us as well to start undoing the assault on our environment that has occurred over the past four years," McCarthy said.
"We have a big agenda in front of us on a global basis," Kerry said. "And President Biden is deeply committed, totally seized by this issue."
Biden has set a goal of eliminating pollution from fossil fuel in the power sector by 2035 and from the U.S. economy overall by 2050, speeding what is already a market-driven growth of solar and wind energy and lessening the country's dependence on oil and gas. The ambitious plan is aimed at slowing human-caused global warming that is magnifying extreme weather events such as deadly wildfires in the West and drenching rains and hurricanes in the East. But the rapid pace of change needed to stave off global warming also carries political risk for the president and Democrats overall.
Biden also is elevating climate change to a national security priority. The conservation plan would set aside millions of acres for recreation, wildlife and climate efforts by 2030 as part of Biden's campaign pledge for a $2 trillion program to slow global warming.
President Donald Trump, who ridiculed the science of climate change, withdrew the U.S. from the Paris global climate accord, opened more public lands to coal, gas and oil production and weakened regulation on fossil fuel emissions. Experts say these emissions are heating the Earth's climate dangerously and worsening floods, droughts and other natural disasters.
Biden and his supporters say the investment in cleaner energy national will net millions of jobs. But that probably will take years to happen, and the orders will face intense opposition from oil and gas and power plant industries, as well as from many Republican — and Democratic — lawmakers.
Biden is seeking to double energy production from offshore wind after the Trump administration slowed permit review of some giant offshore wind turbine projects.
Significantly, he is directing agencies to eliminate spending that acts as subsidies for fossil fuel industries.
A 60-day suspension order at the Interior Department did not limit existing oil and gas operations under valid leases, meaning activity would not come to a sudden halt on the millions of acres of lands in the West and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico where much drilling is concentrated. The freeze also is unlikely to affect existing leases. Its effect could be further blunted by companies that stockpiled enough drilling permits in Trump's final months to allow them to keep pumping oil and gas for years.
Biden will direct all U.S. agencies to use science and evidence-based decision-making in federal rule-making and announce a U.S.-hosted climate leaders summit on Earth Day, April 22.
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