After a four-year hiatus, the United States is officially taking climate change seriously again. On Thursday, President Joe Biden pledged that by 2030, the nation will slash its carbon pollution 50 to 52 percent compared with 2005 levels.
That goal, which represents America’s new “Nationally Determined Contribution” under the Paris Agreement, was announced during a two-day virtual summit Biden is hosting with leaders of the world’s largest economies, starting on Earth Day, to galvanize greater climate ambitions. It’s a bold leap forward from the Obama administration’s original Paris Agreement pledge to reduce emissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. But it falls squarely in line with what hundreds of scientists and public health experts, as well as heads of corporations, have called for in recent days.