Biden Pledges Big Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions

At the "Leaders Summit on Climate" today, President Joe Biden has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by 50-52 percent from 2005 levels by the year 2030.

1 minute read

April 22, 2021, 12:00 PM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Clean Energy

Aysezgicmeli / Shutterstock

"President Joe Biden pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse gas pollution in half by 2030," report Deirdre Shesgreen.

President Biden made the pledge while kicking off a two-day virtual summit attended by 40 world leaders.

"The White House's goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% percent, from a baseline of 2005 emissions, is nearly double the target set by Obama administration in 2015," according to Shesgreen.

The Biden administration also today published a fact sheet providing more detail about how it intends to achieve those emission reductions, headlining a commitment to clean energy technologies.

The New York Times also published an infographic-rich feature by Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich that compares the president's proposed emission target to the targets of other wealthy, industrialized nations. To summarize, Biden's goal is "one of the more aggressive near-term targets among wealthy industrialized nations, although the cuts are arguably not quite as large as what the European Union and Britain have already promised."

Thursday, April 22, 2021 in USA Today

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