Biden, Calling for Action, Commits U.S. to Halving Its Climate Emissions

President Biden on Thursday moved to put four years of official climate denial behind the United States, declaring that America would cut its global warming emissions at least in half by the end of the decade.

Addressing 40 world leaders at the start of a two-day summit about the U.S. return to the Paris climate agreement, Mr. Biden sought to galvanize other countries to take more aggressive steps.

He cast the challenge of avoiding catastrophic warming as an economic opportunity for America and the world, a striking contrast to his predecessor who had abandoned the agreement. “This is a moral imperative, an economic imperative,” Mr. Biden said. “A moment of peril, but also a moment of extraordinary possibilities.”

In rapid succession, Japan, Canada, Britain and the European Union committed to steeper cuts. But China, India and Russia made no new emissions promises, and even Mr. Biden’s commitment to cut U.S. greenhouse gases 50 percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade will be extraordinarily difficult to meet, economically and politically.

Read the article at the NY Times – https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/climate/biden-climate-change.html