MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th February, 2021) The return of the United States to the Paris agreement on climate and US President Joe Biden's focus on climate change could create a "new dynamic" and potentially push other governments to do more, Wendel Trio, the director of Climate Action Network Europe, told Sputnik.
The United States entered the Paris Agreement on Climate change under the presidency of Barack Obama in 2016, then left under Donald Trump in 2017. Joe Biden signed an executive order to rejoin the agreement on his first day in the office.
"Biden has clearly put climate change as one of the key priorities of his mandate and in that sense that is of course very much welcomed by the NGO community. In that way it's not only one of the biggest greenhouse has emitters back on the table but also it's very clear that the US by wanting to tackle climate change, by looking at developing new policies at home and by engaging in international negotiations is actually creating some kind of new dynamic on the climate change debate, where governments would increase action on climate change," Trio said.
According to Trio, the US is the cause of 15 to 20 percent of the total global emissions, but, under the new administration, it might strive to halve emissions by 2030. To put that into perspective, Obama administration planned to cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent by 2025. The potential new target would be a large reduction, Trio said, although slightly smaller that the EU's target of cutting emissions by 55 percent by 2030.
"These are substantial commitments from the big emitters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and linked to that there is also a commitment from China that they will bring their emissions to zero by 2060. Looking at that you have the three biggest emitters that are taking action to seriously tackle climate change," Trio said.
The NGO director remarked that the previous US administration's argument that climate change action was harmful for the economy was not necessarily true for all US states.
"You have a number of Republican-dominated states, like New Mexico and Texas, that have very high shares of renewable energy in their territories and that is not because of climate change � because a lot of Republicans don't consider it Primary topic � but because it's cheaper to invest in renewable energy than in fossil fuel energy production," Trio said.
At the same time, the Federal government would have to look into solutions for the states, which find it hard to implement the climate change policies � because of major presence of the coal industry, for instance � Trio said.
"The whole issue is about economic arguments, because even if you don't care about climate change, people care about economics. So if it makes economic sense to invest in alternatives then states will do so," Trio argued.
The NGO director acknowledged that there was "a limit to what the federal administration can do" in the US, as it had to rely on states to carry out policies. However, "with the new wind that is blowing in the US federal government more will be possible," Trio said.
The important message to send would be that acting on climate change can be good for the economy, the climate expert concluded.
