Biden to push sharp decline in emissions

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden this week will pledge to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at least in half by the end of the decade, according to two individuals briefed on the plan, as part of an aggressive push to combat climate change at home and persuade other major economies to follow suit.

The move comes as Biden convenes a virtual summit of more than three dozen world leaders Thursday, aimed at ratcheting up international climate ambitions and reestablishing the United States as a leader in the effort to slow the planet’s warming.

The planned U.S. pledge represents a near-doubling of the target that the nation committed to under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, when President Barack Obama vowed to cut emissions between 26 percent and 28 percent compared with 2005 levels.

A White House official said a final decision had not been made.

The Paris accord, which President Donald Trump exited but Biden promptly rejoined, was designed with the expectation that countries would embrace bigger, bolder targets over time.

“The Biden-Harris administration will do more than any in history to meet our climate crisis,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a speech Monday. “This is already an all-hands-ondeck effort across our government and across our nation. Our future depends on the choices we make today.”

The administration probably will offer broad strokes rather than a detailed breakdown of how it will meet the more ambitious target, according to the individuals briefed on the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan had not been formally announced. Officials are considering a target range, they added, which could go above 50 percent at the higher end.

Still, the new pledge will offer the latest glimpse at the profound changes that Biden wants to set in motion, from decarbonizing the country’s energy sector to phasing out gas-powered vehicles. Administration officials have made clear that they see the effort not only as a climate pursuit but as a massive investment in a new generation of jobs nationwide. “We’re going to do it in a way that’s very deliberate,” White House domestic climate adviser Gina McCarthy told reporters Monday. The administration wants to transition to a cleaner economy with well-paying occupations in communities that have been hardest hit by unemployment and underinvestment, she said. “It’s intended to meet the moment we are in.”

The pledge also is meant to serve as a marker for the kind of scope — and urgency — that the Biden administration wants other countries to embrace ahead of a United Nations climate gathering this fall in Scotland.

Some nations, including those that are part of the European Union, have locked in more aggressive emissions-cutting targets. The United Kingdom on Tuesday announced a commitment to reducing its emissions by 78 percent by 2035, compared to 1990 levels — a goal that the government said would take the nation more than three-quarters of the way toward reaching net zero by 2050.

But other major emitters, including China, India and Russia, have yet to spell out how they intend to help put the world on a more sustainable trajectory.

China, the largest greenhouse gas polluter, has said it plans to effectively erase its carbon footprint by 2060, though the details remain unclear.