Biden’s Climate Change Policy: A Radical Shift From the Trump Era 

The major challenge for the Biden administration is to guarantee the sustainability of its climate plan. It is the only way to restore American credibility on climate issues and reach the ambitious goals announced by Biden during the campaign. Ideally, it would act through legislation and regulations, but a major push and perhaps the best asset will come from private companies and the evolution of the market, driven in large part by the pressure of public opinion and civil society, which will make things as irreversible as an act of Congress. Other important actions will be regulations regarding extraction on federal lands; and standards and norms adopted at the state levels, following the example of California.

Support for decisions at the city and state levels will be decisive. On that level, climate action has remained ambitious during the past four years, despite Trump. But a major challenge remains in the South and Midwestern states, starting with those which are most dependent on fossil fuels: Texas, West Virginia, Wyoming, North Dakota, Oklahoma... Most are also Republican strongholds. We could see a dynamic opposite to that prevailing under Trump at the federal vs. state level. Mostly, there is a risk of a growing geographical polarization on climate legislations, with a "two countries" dynamic similar to what seems to be happening for legislation on digital issues. 

The Trump administration had chosen to ignore its own report, established by 13 federal agencies, on the consequences of climate change for the American territory, population, public health and economy, predicting in particular a 10% contraction of the US economy if nothing was done by the end of the century. But climate skepticism or outright denial remains an essential marker of the American cultural wars, making ambitious legislation very nearly impossible to pass in Congress. 

President Biden has announced a major $2 trillion plan for climate. Can he win over Republican members’ hostility to environmental measures? Besides, is this plan considered as sufficiently ambitious by the American public and civil society, particularly by the younger generations, who are most engaged in the fight against climate change?

The current priority is to pass a first plan to help Americans face the economic difficulties related to the pandemic (Relief). The next plan (Recovery) will come in a second phase, and Biden's appearance before Congress has been postponed for the moment. Regarding public opinion, and elected officials’ positions, things have been changing rather quickly. There is now very broad support for concrete proposals to fight climate change or for renewable energies, as shown by a 2020 Pew study: two-thirds of Americans now believe that the government must do more on climate. Additionally, climate is increasingly the first, or one of the major, concerns of younger voters, Democrat and Republican alike.

But it is also one of the most polarized issues in US politics today. While some Republican elected officials are evolving, especially when they are elected in blue states, or when their state is affected by the consequences of the current acceleration of climate change on the American continent - Florida being the best example -, they continue to reject the Paris Accord as anti-America First. Moreover, they emphasize technological approaches - from carbon capture, carbon removal, to solar geoengineering - addressing the consequences rather than the causes of climate change. Above all, Republicans remain attached to fossil fuels for reasons related to the geography of the vote, the jobs associated with extraction, but also for the defense of the American way of life, still "non-negotiable" as George W. Bush used to say; and they consider American energy supremacy as an essential component of power. These facts make any legislation difficult, especially with the closely divided Congress, and a 50-50 Senate. But there is room for some progress, as shown by the vote in December 2020 of the most ambitious federal law in a decade for investment in renewable technologies, including tens of billions of dollars of investment in solar, wind and batteries, as well as research on carbon capture and storage, and advances in the fight against HFC gases.

Biden has announced the US return to the Paris climate Accord, the nomination of John Kerry as Climate special envoy, and a Climate Leader Summit on Earth Day, next April 22: what is at stake internationally for this summit, a few months before the COP26 Glasgow meeting? Will we see progress on the global governance of climate issues? 

The appointment of John Kerry as Special Envoy on Climate has been justly interpreted as an important sign from the new American president. Perhaps more important is the fact that Kerry will sit on the National Security Council, and have a domestic counterpart in Gina McCarthy, who will have perhaps an even more important role to boost US credibility. But the return of the US to the Paris Accord goes beyond issues of international governance.

The impact will depend on three factors. First, the ambition of US engagements, through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), which will be announced ahead of the April 22nd summit, and on which we already have an idea of Biden's commitments regarding carbon neutrality of the electricity sector by 2035, and carbon neutrality of the entire economy in 2050. Second, the credibility of the US comeback, which will depend on domestic decisions and concrete implementation of the Biden climate plan, and on its sustainability at a time of deep polarization, where climate is becoming an "identity issue" for Republicans. Finally, the knock-on effects on the rest of the world: on this point, we have already seen an "anticipatory" effect with the ambitious (and vague, and distant) announcements made by President Xi Jiping in September 2020, with the announced objective of carbon neutrality for China by 2060. 

Beyond the credibility and durability of American commitments, there are two major issues at stake internationally, concerning fossil fuel producing countries (including the US), and the least developed countries, some of which are also the most affected, in a context aggravated by the current pandemic and economic crisis. Regarding China, the real challenge will be to obtain intermediate objectives from Beijing (i.e. before 2060) between now and the Glasgow COP26. Another crucial challenge, made possible by the progress made in this area, will be the verification of countries’ NDC commitments: there is a risk that these announcements will remain just that (30 years of climate diplomacy have seen global GHG emissions increase by more than 60%).

The most crucial issue today has to do with the different geopolitical dynamics emerging between the major emitters, China, the US, the EU, and India: cooperation and competition for influence on the necessary global governance of biodiversity, especially related to oceans or the Amazon (and anticipating other issues linked to geoengineering); fierce economic competition for sectors that represent the economy of the future, on which China has already taken a considerable lead (solar panels, batteries, rare earths, all necessary for renewables); and reconciling these economic and industrial constraints with the pressure of civil society and the decisions of the main economic players.

 

Copyright: Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP