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Speaking before 40 world leaders in a virtual climate summit on Thursday, President Biden said that the US will commit to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by 2030 and “net-zero emissions…no later than 2050.”
The United States is hosting a two-day White House virtual climate summit attended by 40 world leaders on Thursday and Friday, part of the Paris Climate Pact, which the US rejoined in February, NBC reported.
During his opening remarks to the dozens of global leaders on Thursday morning, President Joe Biden announced that the United States is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half or better by 2030 with a target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
“These steps will set America on a path of a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050,” President Biden said, USA Today reported.
“Scientists tell us that this is the decisive decade,” Biden continued, “this is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of a climate crisis.”
During further remarks, President Biden stated that the US has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a target that is 50%-52% below its 2005 emissions levels by 2030, CNN reported.
In the early part of the pandemic in 2020, there seemed to be some indications that, one silver lining, if any, a reduction of carbon emissions was occurring.
Around the globe, people hunkered down indoors and did little to no driving. With so many cars off the road, gasoline prices plummeted. Millions found themselves unemployed. In fact, one the biggest searches people made during this time was “I need a job.”
Space agencies and research institutes had showed satellite images that had the world marveling at the dissipation of air pollution over major cities. These experts told us that nature was healing from the damage humankind had subjected the environment to, space.com reported.
But in terms of climate change, it seems the optimism was premature at the very least, if not wishful thinking. A new report released on Monday entitled The State of the Global Climate 2020 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the United Nations body promoting international cooperation in atmospheric science, climatology, and hydrology, tells a different story and brings us back to reality.
While satellite images showed the visible reduction of air pollution over the world’s largest cities in 2020, concentrations of greenhouse gases continued to increase in the Earth’s atmosphere. The 2020 global climate report found that concentrations of carbon dioxide reached 410 parts per million in 2020 compared to 408 parts per million in 2018 – an increase of 2 million parts per million.
