The Biden administration is pursuing an aggressive agenda to reduce carbon emissions in order to make up for lost time caused by the Trump administration's jettisoning of US commitments to the environment, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th May, 2021) The Biden administration is pursuing an aggressive agenda to reduce carbon emissions in order to make up for lost time caused by the Trump administration's jettisoning of US commitments to the environment, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a speech to the US Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
"Unfortunately, in recent years the Federal government largely ignored the problem, while ceding economic leadership to other countries," Yellen said. "We are now less prepared than we ought to be for the increasingly frequent and deadly impacts of climate-related weather events and less equipped to lead the global economic transformation underway. This administration is acting and will make up for lost time."
US commitments to carbon reduction were greatly reduced over the past four years after former President Donald Trump pulled the country out of the 2015 Paris Accord to focus on economic development that included increased production of fossil fuels.
The Biden administration rejoined the pact after President Joe Biden came to office in January and has since ramped up its goals under the pledge, targeting a reduction of US greenhouse gas emissions by half and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
Yellen said the lack of US focus on reimagining the alternative energy market was what allowed China to take the lead in solar and wind, the faster-growing segments of the global market for renewable energy, and also race ahead in developing battery storage technologies.
"Our disadvantage deepened over the last four years with our exit from the Paris Agreement, the removal of dozens of important environmental protections, and our underinvestment in technologies of the future," she said.
The US Department of Energy said earlier this week it managed to cut nearly $14 billion in energy costs as well as greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 30 million vehicles in just a year despite a minimal focus on carbon targets. This made the Biden administration's target for cleaner energy goals over the next three decades possible, it said.�
