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WORLD LEADERS PLEDGE AMBITIOUS CLIMATE ACTIONS AT BIDEN-HOSTED SUMMIT
- By The Financial District
- Apr 23, 2021
- 2 min read
President Joe Biden kicked off a climate summit of 40 world leaders on Thursday by promising to cut US greenhouse gas emissions in half by the decade's end, one of many pledges at the online meeting to tackle global warming.
"Scientists tell us that this is the decisive decade. This is the decade we must make decisions that will avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis," Biden said, calling it a "moment of peril," Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) reported.
The two-day meeting is aimed at rallying major economies to set more ambitious carbon-slashing goals and is seen as important preparation ahead of the UN climate conference in Glasgow in November.
Biden said the US would do its part to help solve the "existential crisis" of modern times by cutting emissions by 50 percent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
The meeting brought together a range of voices, some of them vocal critics of Washington, from Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
China, the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide gases, will "strictly control" its coal-fired power projects, President Xi said, adding that over the coming five years the country will hasten its reduction of coal consumption. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his country will reduce emissions by 40 to 45 percent compared to 2005 levels, raising an earlier goal of 30 percent. Ahead of the summit, the European Union officially committed to at least a 55 percent reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen argued for a common global emissions target in her speech. Britain, meanwhile, said it is aiming by 2035 to reduce emissions by at least 78 percent below 1990 levels.
Biden's emissions pledge doubles the promise made by former US president Barack Obama but gives the current administration five more years to meet its goal. In 2015, the US had committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025, compared to 2005 levels, as a contribution to the global Paris Agreement.
One of Biden's first acts in office was to return his country to the 2015 climate accord, which his predecessor, Donald Trump, had pulled out of.
