The Green Guide: Joe Biden’s path to environmental justice
A new hope for international cooperation on climate change and energy.
President-Elect Joe Biden has outlined several ambitious goals to tackle climate change as President. Image Source: Flickr
Even though the extreme impacts of climate change continue to escalate, the Trump administration in all its four years has denied this evidence and has continued to pursue its agenda of repealing environmental regulations. The U.S. has pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, an international agreement signed by every country on Earth, and in doing so, abdicated leadership on the issue. To environmentalists everywhere, the President-elect Joe Biden, with his proposed policies to tackle the issue is, perhaps, a glimmer of light in all this ‘gloom’.
Instead of ignoring the grave threat of climate change, Biden has outlined a bold plan - a Clean Energy Revolution. As president, Biden will lead the world to address the climate emergency and lead through the power of example, by ensuring the U.S. achieves a 100 per cent clean energy economy and net zero emissions no later than 2050. To establish such an optimistic goal, he aims to create an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets no later than the end of his first term in 2025. Over the next few years, Biden plans to invest $1.7 trillion to make historic investments in clean energy and climate research and innovation.
Another encouraging move by Biden is that he promises to recommit the U.S. to the Paris Agreement on climate change. What’s more, he plans on leading the effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets. His method? Through integrating climate change into U.S. foreign policy and national security strategies, as well as in their approach to trade.
During the pandemic, Trump offered a lot of support to the non-renewable oil and gas industry and made it extremely difficult for renewable energy companies to survive. The administration has placed heavy tariffs on imported solar modules, ended solar tax credits and approved far fewer green energy projects than its predecessors. They had also insisted on ending tax credits for electrical vehicles. In doing so, the Trump administration really slowed down the growth of the renewable market. Biden, on the other hand, has plans to move towards a greener and cleaner future where non-renewable energy usage is a thing of the past. He has plans to help mayors and governors deploy 500,000 new electric vehicle charging stations by 2030, and also proposes to double offshore wind production by 2030. He aims to cut building emissions in half by 2035 through retrofits and to introduce incentives for local regulations to allow for denser, more affordable development near public transit. Biden wants strict fuel efficiency standards in an attempt to make purchases of all new cars and light trucks electric and will also support development of small-scale nuclear reactors.
When considering water pollution - which kills hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. alone - Trump discredited Obama-era rules that prevented coal mines from dumping ash containing toxic materials into streams. He also extended the lifespan of dangerous coal ash waste sites. Biden, on the other hand, plans to establish an environmental justice division within the Department of Justice, which would support litigation and increased enforcement against polluters. To limit the concentration of polluting industries in communities of colour, he would require agencies to take into account cumulative pollutant levels before issuing or renewing permits under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Here, 40 per cent of clean energy funds would be committed to disadvantaged communities. He would also speed up testing for lead in drinking water, as well as declare more toxic chemicals hazardous so they could be removed from water pipes. In his first 100 days, Biden says he would produce a report identifying which strategies would result in the fastest improvements to air and water quality.
In response to Biden’s victory, Boris Johnson commented: “Congratulations to Joe Biden on his election as President of the US and to Kamala Harris on her historic achievement. The US is our most important ally and I look forward to working closely together on our shared priorities, from climate change to trade and security.” Others to mention climate in their first messages to Mr Biden and Ms Harris include the leaders of Fiji, Sweden, New Zealand, Austria, Iceland, Maldives and Greece. The heads of several universities have also sided with Biden’s plan for climate change. According to Vicki Arroyo, executive director of Georgetown University’s Climate Center, she said “This is really the first time that a U.S. president is leading with climate”. However, given that global warming continues to divide Republicans and Democrats, she does suggest cautious ambition, stating that there is a limit to what Biden can accomplish.”
All in all, the United States of America has been in a dire need of a leader that understands the significance of scientific evidence and does not dismiss it. We have already begun to witness the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and the ecosystem, as species loss and extinction have disturbingly accelerated as a result of increasing ocean temperature, shrinking ice glaciers, rising sea levels, and much more. This will eventually jeopardise and have a long-lasting negative effect on human health, food and water supply and economic growth. Only time will tell if Joe Biden is truly the climate change pioneer that the world so desperately needs.
This article is published as part of the the Green Guide series, written by Pi Media columnist Nishika Jain.