Biden Sets Higher U.S. Goal Under the Climate Pact That Trump Aims to Abandon

President Joe Biden, in the waning days of his administration, has decided to plant a flag for stronger climate action for the United States, despite the nation’s struggle to meet its current targets and President-elect Donald Trump’s vows to abandon the international effort to cut greenhouse gas pollution.

The administration announced Thursday that it is racing ahead of most other countries and submitting the U.S. goal for the next phase of the Paris climate agreement: A target of reducing the nation’s net carbon emissions by 61 to 66 percent below 2005 levels by 2035.

“Together, we will turn this existential threat into a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform our nation for generations to come,” Biden said in a brief video-recorded statement. “I know we can do this. We are the United States of America. There is nothing beyond our capacity if we work together.”

Under the Paris Agreement, nations set a series of interim goals on the road to cutting net greenhouse gas emissions 100 percent by mid-century. A slew of studies have shown that the U.S. is not currently on track to achieve its current Paris goal of cutting emissions 50 percent by 2030. According to one such analysis by the Rhodium Group, a consulting firm, the United States would have to achieve a 6.9 percent emissions reduction every year from 2024 through 2030 to meet that target, more than triple the 1.9 percent drop seen in 2023.

The efforts to decarbonize are facing headwinds, due to increasing electricity demand and a fracking-driven increase of U.S. oil and gas production to record levels. And Trump’s incoming economic team has talked about increasing oil production by 3 million barrels per day—about a 25 percent increase—as part of a drive to reduce consumer prices. Whether or not such a ramp-up is achievable, Trump’s plans to roll back vehicle emissions standards, power plant and efficiency regulations, and subsidies for clean energy are bound to increase climate pollution, if achieved.

Carbon Brief, a U.K.-based journalism site, projected that Trump’s plans would put an additional 4 billion tons of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, negating—twice over—all of the savings from global deployment of wind, solar and other clean technologies over the past five years. It would mean the United States would miss Biden’s 2030 Paris goal of cutting emissions in half by a wide margin—achieving only a 28 percent reduction, Carbon Brief concluded based on an aggregation of modeling by Rhodium and other analysts.

Trump’s transition team noted that carbon emissions fell to their lowest level in 25 years during his first term—a reduction partly due to reduced reliance on coal, a trend which has continued, and partly due to a temporary drop in demand during the COVID-19 pandemic. In his second term, “President Trump will once again deliver clean air and water for American families while Making America Wealthy Again,” said Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump transition in an email.

Can States Pick Up The Ball?

Biden’s new goal for 2035, known as a Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, will be a dead letter—at least for four years—if Trump follows through on his promise to withdraw from the Paris Agreement a second time.

Nevertheless, the White House pointed out that the United States was able to achieve greenhouse gas reductions during the first Trump administration, and would be able to do so again.

“The Biden-Harris administration may be about to leave office, but we’re confident in America’s ability to rally around this new climate goal,” said one senior administration official. “Because while the United States federal government under President Trump may put climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief.”

Some environmentalists had been calling for Biden to announce an NDC before leaving office, and many praised the announcement. 

“This ambitious NDC reflects the scientific imperative to urgently reduce climate pollution, keeping a path open to avoiding the worst climate outcomes,” said Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, in a prepared statement.

But others expressed concern that such pledges lack meaning without concrete steps to reduce use of fossil fuel. 

“It’s good to see a somewhat more ambitious pledge, but it’ll be up to states and other national leaders to defy Trump and move us quickly away from planet-heating fossil fuels,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity, in an emailed statement. “While Biden’s pledge rightly reiterates the need to get off dirty energy, the real work lies in rooting out the corrupting political influence of oil, gas and utilities.”

Scientists have become increasingly alarmed about the gap between ambition and action on climate change worldwide. Climate scientist Michael Mann, director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media, has written that global carbon emissions must now drop about 10 percent each year if the world is to maintain the hope—and the goal of the Paris agreement—of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In a recently published study that looks at the multiple impacts of warming now taking place, he and his coauthors wrote that the climate crisis was entering a critical and unpredictable new phase. “We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” they wrote. “This is a global emergency beyond any doubt. Much of the very fabric of life on Earth is imperiled.”

Nevertheless, modeling by some academics shows that ambitious goals for addressing climate change remain achievable, even if some actors—like the U.S. federal government—roll back their efforts for a time. One such analysis by the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability, updated earlier this month, takes into account the results of the election. It concluded that the United States could achieve 54 to 62 percent greenhouse gas emissions reductions by 2035 across a range of scenarios for federal action—as long as state and local governments greatly increase climate action.

Without an increase in state and local action, the UMD researchers calculate the United States would be on track to just a 48 percent reduction in emissions by 2035 in the case of an extensive rollback of climate action by Trump. Such a scenario would make the new Biden goal wildly optimistic, since it would mean that the United States would fall short even of Biden’s 2030 goal. 

The research indicates the new Biden goals for 2035 can be achieved only if some federal policies are retained, such as the tax credits for clean energy projects, and state and local governments ramp up climate policy. At the same time, states would have to implement aggressive action, phasing out coal power through clean electricity portfolio standards, implementing zero-emissions appliance and construction standards and widespread adoption of strong electric vehicle standards for cars and trucks. 

“The role of sub-national actors couldn’t be more critical in advancing climate action over the next four years,” said Alicia Zhao, research manager at UMD’s Center for Global Sustainability and lead author of the analysis.

But the incoming Trump administration also could confound state efforts at climate action. The auto industry’s main trade group, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said it expects the Trump administration to revoke California’s authority to phase out new gas-powered vehicle sales by 2035. In a widely expected move, the Biden administration on Wednesday granted California formal permission for its program. The auto industry, despite its investments in EVs, still makes most of its profit on its largest gas guzzling pick-up trucks and SUVs, and is seeking a slower ramp-up in vehicle electrification. In a memo last week, the Alliance said states that move ahead of the federal government, following California’s lead, are entering an “unaccountable, unachievable regulatory wormhole.”

What Ambition Looks Like

The White House said part of the reason the Biden administration decided to release the NDC now was to show state and local governments of the need to increase their efforts.

“It’s important to signal to sub-national actors what we think ambition looks like, and what people need to work and strive for and to set off that virtuous cycle of an investment and enhanced ambition,” said one senior administration official. “And it’s important to do that across the globe, to show that the United States has the means and the will, at least at the sub-national level, to continue to be constructive players in the system and to move the world forward.”

With the Biden administration’s submission, the United States joins only two other countries—Brazil and the United Arab Emirates—in having submitted NDCs for 2035, according to the Climate Action Tracker. The new goals are due early in 2025. 

To develop the new 2035 goal, the Biden-Harris Administration analyzed the potential for carbon reductions in every economic sector—power generation, buildings, transportation, industry, agriculture and forestry, the White House said. 

An important part of achieving the 2035 emissions target will be reductions of the potent greenhouse gas methane by 35 percent from 2005 levels. “Cutting methane emissions is among the fastest ways to reduce near-term warming and is an essential complement to CO2 mitigation,” the White House said in a statement.

The anticipated 35 percent reduction in methane emissions goes beyond the 30 percent target set in the Global Methane Pledge, a non-binding agreement to reduce methane emissions launched by the U.S. and European Union in 2021.

While the NDC isn’t binding, including a specific figure for methane, something the U.S. did not do in its NDC for 2030, strengthens the U.S. commitment to reducing methane emissions. 

A significant reduction in methane emissions would also go further to curb warming than an NDC that relied solely on carbon dioxide emission reductions. Methane is a short-lived greenhouse gas. It stays in the atmosphere for approximately 11 years, whereas carbon dioxide can remain for hundreds of years. Curbing methane emissions would have a much more immediate impact on the climate than similar reductions in carbon dioxide. 

A recent assessment by the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development found that NDCs that include a strong methane emission reduction component result in about one third of a degree more cooling than those that rely solely on carbon dioxide emission reductions.

“I’m really excited to see that there is a concrete step here being taken by the United States in cutting methane emissions, which is one of the fastest and most impactful ways to cool the planet,” said Avipsa Mahapatra, the climate campaign director for the Environmental Investigation Agency US, a nonprofit based in Washington.

Mahapatra said she was optimistic that methane emission reductions would continue during the Trump administration despite pledges by President-elect Trump to roll back environmental regulations that pertain to the oil and gas industry.

“American businesses need to stay competitive and smart businesses will see the writing on the wall and will continue to move in the right direction, regardless of any pulling back on ambition by a future administration,” she said.

But independent oil and gas producers, who were among the largest donors to Trump’s campaign, are urging him in particular to roll back federal efforts to rein in methane, according to a blueprint they developed for the new administration, The Washington Post first reported. Methane rules were high on the hit list of environmental regulations rolled back in Trump’s first administration. 

Zhao argued that there was value in the United States submitting an NDC, despite uncertainty over whether the United States can achieve such a strong trajectory of emissions reductions under Trump.

“The United States is the world’s largest economy and the second-largest greenhouse gas emitter,” she said. “So I think by submitting a 2035 NDC, it sends a strong signal for other countries to follow suit and set similarly high-ambition targets. I think without this strong signal from the U.S., we might not see as much climate action from the other countries.”

Another reason is to establish a goal that could last beyond the Trump administration, she said. “The NDC—I don’t think it’s just for one administration,” Zhao said. “It’s for [a] future administration to look toward as a guidepost or a North Star for what they should be doing to help keep the world under 1.5 degrees Celsius.”