Looking deeper than US's contrary climate policies

On the very first day in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order bringing the United States back into the Paris climate agreement, signaling his administration's plans to focus on climate change.

For many observers, there was a sense of whiplash after four years of climate inaction under President Donald Trump.

"For people around the world, the very visible manifestation of the US on climate has been very much active with Obama, a very much kind of oppositional under Trump and now with President Biden back to an active stance again," agrees Nathan Hultman, the Director of the University of Maryland's Center for Global Sustainability.

But Hultman believes a better understanding of the last decade of American climate policies is gained by looking beyond U.S. federal government to what "sub-national actors," such as states, cities, corporations, tribal groups and non-profit organizations have achieved.

As Biden prepares convenes a virtual climate summit on Thursday with 40 world leaders and putting the United States back on center stage, he faces a vexing task: how to put forward a nonbinding but symbolic goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will have a tangible impact on climate change efforts not only in the U.S. but throughout the world.

The 50% target, which most experts consider a likely outcome of intense deliberations underway at the White House, would nearly double the nation’s previous commitment and require dramatic changes in the power and transportation sectors, including significant increases in renewable energy such as wind and solar power and steep cuts in emissions from fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

Scientists, environmental groups and even business leaders are calling on Biden to set a target that would cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.

The 2030 target is just one in a sometimes overlapping set of goals that Biden has outlined on climate. He also has said he expects to adopt a clean energy standard that would make electricity carbon-free by 2035, along with the wider goal of net-zero carbon emissions economy-wide by 2050.

Biden's Cabinet Secretaries have fanned across the United States, pushing the benefits of addressing global warming to an American public. Much of the proposed spending to address climate change is included in Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure bill.

Sidestepping federal politics, many private corporations are making their own plans for tackling climate change.

Ford Motor Company's vice president for sustainability, environment and safety engineering, Bob Holycross, says the company is watching the global leader's climate summit closely. Holycross says Ford is looking for "the unity that's required to be able to get these greenhouse gas emissions reductions that are so critical to be able to mitigate the impacts of climate change."

Trying to put in the rear vision mirror the company's $1.28 billion 2020 loses, Ford says it will go all-in on electric vehicles. Ford expects to spend at least $22 billion developing them from 2016 through 2025, nearly double what it previously announced.

The company's electric Mustang Mach E SUV is already on sale and it expects to start selling an electric Transit full-size van this year and an all-electric F-150 pickup next year.

Holycross believes Ford is demonstrating its commitment to reducing emissions, citing the company's decision to side with California's more stringent emissions requirements, over the federal requirements during the Trump era.

"We're not waiting until 10 years from now and 15 years from now," Holycross says. "We can't wait for the different political cycles that may come through with this."

Despite the political risks of sitting at a virtual conference table with Russia and China, the University of Maryland's Hultman says climate may be one area that rival countries can agree to work together to address with benefits potentially spread across the globe.

"What the US and China do matters for the climate," Hultman says. "And it turns out that they also have some potential interest in working together on this issue. "