US president Joe Biden is moving to re-assert US leadership on climate change, issuing a sweeping order today that aims to make the issue a top priority across the federal government.
Biden called the order an attempt to "supercharge" the government's efforts to address climate change by taking steps domestically and globally, including by hosting a world climate summit in April, establishing new emissions-reduction commitments for the US under the Paris climate agreement and directing federal agencies to make climate change an integral part of their decision-making.
"It is not time for small measures," Biden said. "We need to be bold."
The 22 April summit would bring together world leaders to help raise global ambitions ahead of the next UN climate talks, scheduled for this November in Glasgow, Scotland. It will also serve as a re-start of the
Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate, a US-led effort to bring major emitters together intended to complement the UN talks.
"The convening of this summit is essential in ensuring that 2021 really is the year that makes up for the lost time of the last four years" and make the Glasgow talks, known as COP26, "an unqualified success," US special climate envoy John Kerry told reporters before Biden signed the order.
"The road to Glasgow will be marked not just by promises but by progress," he said.
The order also calls for the administration to establish a new national emissions pledge for the Paris climate agreement, which Biden moved to re-join last week, with the aim of announcing the new commitment ahead of the April summit.
Kerry and domestic climate policy advisor Gina McCarthy declined to say how aggressive the US may get with its new Paris pledge, called a nationally determined contribution (NDC). But McCarthy said she will work with a task force of federal agencies to "develop the most aggressive NDC that we can."
The US under former president Barack Obama pledged to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 26-28pc from 2005 levels by 2025 to help achieve the Paris agreement's end goal of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 2°C above pre-industrial levels.
Environmental groups applauded Biden's order as a return of US leadership on the global stage
"President Biden's bold and decisive action today again makes clear he is serious about restoring and strengthening American leadership on climate solutions," Environmental Defense Fun president Fred Krupp said, while calling for the administration to up its Paris pledge to a 50pc reduction by 2030.
Some business groups also applauded the Biden order.
The US Chamber of Commerce said it welcomed Biden's plan to make climate a focus of the entire federal government, but cautioned that the efforts to reduce GHG emissions will require "smart policies" and could "require the focus and attention of Congress."
Biden's order also directs the State Department to submit the Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol to the US Senate for ratification.
More than 100 other countries have ratified the amendment, which took effect last year and calls for a more than 80pc reduction in the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 2050.
The US Congress recently directed the US Environmental Protection Agency to phase down the use of HFCs, which are used in refrigeration and air-conditioning, in line with the goals of the Kigali amendment.
HFCs came into broader use as a replacement for ozone-depleting chemicals that were restricted by the Montreal Protocol in 1987. But they have a global warming effect up to 15,000 times greater than CO2.
The order also freezes most oil and gas leasing on federal land, ordered federal agencies to procure carbon-free electricity for their facilities and electrify government vehicles, and calls for a doubling of offshore wind production in federal waters by 2030.
