Biden touts ‘unprecedented’ progress at COP27
Breanne Deppisch
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President Joe Biden used his speech at the United Nations climate change conference Friday to highlight steps the United States has taken to fight climate change and invest in clean energy over the two years while at the same time stressing the urgency for the world to work together to do more.
Biden ticked through a series of actions the U.S. has taken to help deliver on its commitment to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius — including new spending on clean infrastructure and the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains some $368 billion in federal funds to subsidize clean energy.
“Over the past two years, the United States has delivered unprecedented progress at home,” he said.
The law will reduce emissions by roughly 1 billion tons in 2030, Biden said, citing a statistic from the Department of Energy. “It’s going to shift the paradigm for the United States the entire world,” he told the gathering in Egypt, known as COP27.
In total, he said the actions the administration has taken in the last two years put the U.S. on track to meet the Paris climate accord’s goal of reducing emissions 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030.
While at the summit, Biden also unveiled new actions his administration is taking to fight climate change, including a new supplemental rule introduced by the EPA Friday aimed at strongly regulating methane emissions in the oil and gas sector.
Cutting methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030 is the best bet for the world to stay within reach of the 1.5-degree target, he said.
He also announced the U.S. is doubling its commitment to a fund aimed at helping countries adapt to climate change — bringing its total pledge to $100 billion.
“A climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security, and the very life of the planet,” he said.
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“This gathering must be the moment to recommit to our future and our shared capacity to write a better story for the world,” Biden said.