Biden on Climate Change: is his plan “enough?”
Presidential candidate Joe Biden has been widely criticized recently for his plan to address climate change. One prominent climate group went so far as to grade the plan as an F. However, others have supported Biden’s plan, while Biden himself has defended his plan as “ambitious enough to tackle the crisis.”
Ambition is an interesting yardstick for evaluating Biden’s climate plan. Centering the essential question on ambition sidesteps distracting choices about particular policy options and gets to the heart of the matter: will Biden do enough to stop climate change while there is still a lot left to save?
As it happens, this is one question that science can help answer. For the TLDR crowd, the answer is: No. The science says Biden’s plan is not enough, not even close. But, please read on. I’m going to walk through the science, step by step.
While there are many different options for addressing climate change, there are well established benchmarks for measuring ambition. These benchmarks are laid out in the scientific literature, in particular the authoritative reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that are reviewed and approved by all the world’s governments, including the United States.
These science reports assess the various pathways for reaching the goals established by the Paris Climate Agreement, and they identify the targets best suited for fulfilling the Agreement.
Biden acknowledges the importance of the Paris goals, including the goal of limiting warming to 1.5˚, e.g. his plan states “If the global temperature continues to increase at the current rate and surpasses 1.5°C, the existential threat to life will not be limited to just ecological systems, but will extend to human life as well.”
The IPCC report Global Warming of 1.5˚C provides benchmarks in the form of short-term and long-term targets that can be compared to the targets in Biden’s climate plan. Zooming in on the United States, there is an emerging body of parallel literature establishing benchmarks for the United States.
So, let’s get down to it. Let’s compare Biden’s targets to the targets identified by science.
Making such a comparison requires combing through Biden’s plan to identify clear, verifiable (e.g. quantified) goals and milestones that can be compared to science benchmarks.
A comb through of Biden’s climate plan produces a rather limited set of verifiable goals and milestones. The number of major goals and milestones in Biden’s plan is particularly limited. From the get-go it’s clear that Biden’s ambition on climate change is defined as much by what’s missing from his plan as it is defined by what’s in his plan.
But first up, here are the key benchmarks as set out by the science:
Global Benchmarks
The IPCC set out a large number of global targets and milestones for the “least-cost” path that limits warming to 1.5˚C. Among the goals particularly relevant to the United States are:
- Reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
- Reducing CO2 emissions by 47% (from 2010 levels) by 2030.
- Increasing the share of electricity contributed by renewables to 58% by 2030.
The short-term 2030 goals highlighted by the IPCC are critically important as global warming is driven and determined by the total (i.e. cumulative) pollution to date, not current annual emissions. Waiting until 2030 or 2040 before aggressively moving to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050 will mean that we will have long blown past the budget for limiting warming to 1.5˚C (or even 2˚C). If carbon pollution remains constant, we will reach 1.5˚C in the next 10–14 years, perhaps sooner.
USA Benchmarks
For the United States there is a small but growing set of literature identifying the least cost paths for securing America’s contribution to the global goal of limiting warming to 1.5˚C. These analyses look across individual sectors to identify where emissions reductions can happen the most rapidly with the least cost (or with no cost).
Generally, the power sector (i.e. electricity generation) offers the best opportunities to make large and rapid reductions in carbon pollution at little or no cost (or even, in some cases, while creating savings). The transportation sector is often identified as the other sector where immediate action gets the most bang for the buck. These two sectors also contribute the vast majority of carbon pollution in the U.S. Other sectors include buildings (e.g. heating), agriculture, and industry.
Here are some of the benchmarks identified for the major sectors:
Power-sector (electricity):
The Dec 2019 University of Maryland and Rocky Mountain Institute modeling report “Accelerating America’s Pledge” assesses the 1.5˚ pathway for the USA and specifies these benchmarks:
- “50% renewable electricity and more than 75% clean electricity nationwide [by 2030].”
- “complete the phase-out of coal generation by 2030.”
- “gas generation is below current levels by 2030 and declining.”
An Oct. 2019 analysis and report by the Center for American Progress assesses the 1.5˚ pathway for the USA and specifies
- “at least 65 percent clean generation by 2030.”
Cars and Transportation:
A 2019 Energy Innovation modeling assessment of a more lenient pathway for the USA that reaches net zero by 2050 finds that
- “… the net zero pathway requires 100% of all newly-sold cars, SUVs, motorcycles, buses, and rail locomotives, as well as 50% of medium- and heavy-duty trucks, to be all-electric via electric vehicle policies by 2030.”
Buildings:
For the building sector, the Energy Innovation assessment also established
- “..an ambitious sales mandate requiring all-electric new equipment and appliance standards by 2035…”
- “Policy requiring new construction to be all-electric should be enacted as soon as possible to accelerate the process.”
Biden’s Climate Plan Goals
In the world of international climate negotiations, the USA (including the Obama Administration) has traditionally pushed for countries to submit climate plans that are “measurable, reportable, and verifiable” MRV for short. That requirement is pressed on China in particular. Unfortunately, there isn’t much in Biden’s climate plan that would pass the MRV test.
Here are the most significant of the verifiable elements in Biden’s climate plan — all verbatim excerpts, as posted on March 20, 2020:
[See the Appendix below for the full set of Biden’s verifiable goals that can be compared to the science.]
Biden’s long-term goals
- “the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
This goal is perhaps the only part of Biden’s climate plan that is in sync with the science.
Notably this goal is 30 years away, 22 years after Biden leaves office in 2028 (assuming he serves two full terms). By 2028 we won’t know if we’re going to reach the 2050 goal, but we will know if we are on track or way off track, because there is a clear set of 2030 milestones for the 1.5˚ pathway, none of which are in Biden’s climate plan.
Biden’s medium-term goals
- “Biden’s climate and environmental justice proposal will make a federal investment of $1.7 trillion over the next ten years, leveraging additional private sector and state and local investments to total to more than $5 trillion.”
- “conserving 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030.”
- “develop renewables on federal lands and waters with the goal of doubling offshore wind by 2030”
- “make the largest-ever investment in clean energy research and innovation…create the industries of the future by investing $400 billion over ten years.”
- “a target of reducing the carbon footprint of the U.S. building stock 50% by 2035,”
- “deployment of more than 500,000 new public charging outlets by the end of 2030.”
- “By 2030, the Biden Administration will put the United States back in the driver’s seat, making America the world’s leader in clean energy research, investment, commercialization, manufacturing, and exports.”
It is immediately apparent that Biden’s plan does not include any of the 2030 goals identified by science.
For example, there is no goal for cleaning up the power sector, the easiest sector to decarbonize — beyond doubling off-shore wind (which currently contributes a very small amount of the nation’s power).
For contrast, Bloomberg’s climate plan called for the power sector to be decarbonized 80% by 2028. That plan includes shuttering the remaining coal power plants in the US and ending new construction of natural gas power.
While the science calls for all new cars to be electric by 2030, Biden only commits to 500,000 new public charging outlets by 2030 — in a nation with hundreds of millions of cars.
Biden’s short-term goals
- “establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets no later than the end of his first term in 2025.”
- “banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters, modifying royalties to account for climate costs”
- “Biden will secure a global commitment to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by the end of his first term. He will lead by example, with the United States cutting fossil fuel subsidies at home in his first year”
- “develop a new fuel economy standard that goes beyond what the Obama-Biden Administration put in place.”
These short-term goals all fall into the category of what might charitably be called half-steps. For instance, banning new drilling on public lands won’t do anything to stop the tidal wave of fracking sweeping across private lands nor stop the flow of gas from current well heads on public lands.
The promise to establish by 2025 the milestone markers that are missing from his plan is not only insulting but directly contradicts his promise to rejoin the Paris Agreement. The Agreement calls for each country to submit it’s 2030 goals by this year, 2020. Going into the Paris Agreement all countries understood that making sweeping changes takes time. Waiting until 2025 to figure out how to cut global emissions 47% by 2030 doesn’t make any sense.
The transition we need to make by 2030 is sweeping. While we need to increase investments, the much more important change, by far, is to change the direction of investment. We need to change the direction of new investment 180˚, away from fossil fuels and towards clean energy, and we need to defund current fossil fuel operations.
Such a change won’t happen over night, thus the urgency to get going right away. However, Biden’s climate plan calls for us to sit at the starting line for the next five years.
This coming November I will be voting for Biden. But I’m not going to lie to my kids. If Biden doesn’t step up between now and election day, their future will look a lot less bright.
However, Biden does have an opportunity to step up. Public opinion on climate change has shifted dramatically since Biden’s days in the Obama Administration. Addressing climate change is how a popular idea with moderate swing voters, and it is extremely popular position with liberal Democrats, communities of color, and younger voters — the very camps that Biden needs to turn out en masse at the polls this November. As many pundits have pointed out, taking a more progressive stand on climate change is now a political winner. It can help bring excitement to his campaign.
Biden doesn’t need to flip-flop his position on climate change; he just needs to do more. One place that he could look for ideas is the climate change plan put forward by former Presidential candidate Governor Jay Inslee, a plan that has become the gold standard on the issue and adopted by other candidates including Elizabeth Warren.
As President Obama said when he spoke to the country this week: “We have to return the U.S. to the Paris Agreement, and lead the world in reducing the pollution that causes climate change. But science tells us we have to go much further — that it’s time for us to accelerate progress on bold new green initiatives that make our economy a clean energy innovator, save us money, and secure our children’s future.”
Sidebar
Alongside his threadbare climate goals, Biden’s climate plan also launches bellicose barbs at China including, for example, the perpetuation of the myth that China is “far and away the largest emitter of carbon in the world.” However, that math adds up only if one just counts current emissions. When one counts all the carbon pollution to date — to understand each country’s contribution to the warming (per the science) — the USA is by far and away the pollution leader, responsible for twice as much pollution to date as China. And if one looks at current per capita emissions, Americans are far worse carbon polluters than the Chinese.
Scapegoating China may provide some short-term political capital for Biden’s election. However, that capital will be deducted from any effort to build domestic support for a partnership with China to tackle climate change, a partnership that science says is essential due to China’s vast industrial base. A U.S./China partnership was a key foundation stone for reaching the Paris climate agreement, and that partnership will be critical for encouraging other countries to keep moving forward in the days ahead.
The scale and speed of the economic transition we are facing cannot be met without collaborating with China, the only nation that can manufacture the vast volume of tools, equipment, and goods that is required. See, for example, the Chinese GCL solar factory under construction, a single factory that will be able to produce half of the current world output in solar PV modules.
While China bashing may make political hay, the science says it’s a mistake.
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Appendix:
A comb through of Biden’s climate plan identified a limited set of clear, accountable (e.g. quantified) goals and milestones that can be evaluated against the science.
These goals are (in the order in which they appear):
- the U.S. achieves a 100% clean energy economy and reaches net-zero emissions no later than 2050.”
- establishes an enforcement mechanism that includes milestone targets no later than the end of his first term in 2025.”
- recommit the United States to the Paris Agreement on climate change
- Vice President Biden has committed that Biden for President will not accept contributions from oil, gas and coal corporations or executives.”
- Biden’s climate and environmental justice proposal will make a federal investment of $1.7 trillion over the next ten years, leveraging additional private sector and state and local investments to total to more than $5 trillion.”
- every federal infrastructure investment should reduce climate pollution, and require any federal permitting decision to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
- Requiring public companies to disclose climate risks and the greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains.
- Protecting biodiversity, slowing extinction rates and helping leverage natural climate solutions by conserving 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030.
- permanently protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other areas impacted by President Trump’s attack on federal lands and waters,
- banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters, modifying royalties to account for climate costs
- establishing targeted programs to enhance reforestation
- develop renewables on federal lands and waters with the goal of doubling offshore wind by 2030
- Make future bilateral U.S.-China agreements on carbon mitigation…contingent on China eliminating unjustified export subsidies for coal and other high-emissions technologies and making verifiable progress in reducing the carbon footprint of projects connected to the Belt and Road Initiative.
- make the largest-ever investment in clean energy research and innovation…create the industries of the future by investing $400 billion over ten years.
- he will double down on federal investments and enhance tax incentives for CCUS
- a target of reducing the carbon footprint of the U.S. building stock 50% by 2035,
- deployment of more than 500,000 new public charging outlets by the end of 2030. In addition, Biden will restore the full electric vehicle tax credit to incentivize the purchase of these vehicles. He will ensure the tax credit is designed to targeted middle class consumers
- develop a new fuel economy standard that goes beyond what the Obama-Biden Administration put in place.
- support deployment of methane digesters to capture potent climate emissions and generate electricity.
- Industries from textiles to machine tools to metal fabrication to the most advanced manufacturing technologies will be eligible for funding to modernize, compete, create jobs, and move to clean energy futures. Allocated tax credits and subsidies will be available for businesses to upgrade equipment and processes, invest in expanded or new factories, and deploy low-carbon technologies,
- Where states feel competitive pressures or requirements in response to the climate emergency may threaten a local economy, President Biden’s national strategy will fund efforts to move to a more competitive or low-carbon manufacturing approach
- By 2030, the Biden Administration will put the United States back in the driver’s seat, making America the world’s leader in clean energy research, investment, commercialization, manufacturing, and exports.
- putting the Northeast Corridor on higher speeds and shrinking the travel time from D.C. to New York by half — and build in conjunction with it a new, safer Hudson River Tunnel. He will make progress toward the completion of the California High Speed Rail project. He will expand the Northeast Corridor to the fast-growing South. Across the Midwest and the Great West, he will begin the construction of an end-to-end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts, unlocking new, affordable access for every American.
- Biden will, in his first 100 days in office, … convene a climate world summit
- impose carbon adjustment fees or quotas on carbon-intensive goods from countries that are failing to meet their climate and environmental obligations….also condition future trade agreements on partners’ commitments to meet their enhanced Paris climate targets.
- Make future bilateral U.S.-China agreements on carbon mitigation…contingent on China eliminating unjustified export subsidies for coal and other high-emissions technologies and making verifiable progress in reducing the carbon footprint of projects connected to the Belt and Road Initiative.
- Biden will secure a global commitment to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies by the end of his first term. He will lead by example, with the United States cutting fossil fuel subsidies at home in his first year and redirecting these resources to the historic investment in clean energy infrastructure
- President Biden will ensure the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the Export-Import Bank, and the new U.S. International Development Finance Corporation significantly reduce the carbon footprints of their portfolios. For example, these agencies will be prohibited from any financing for coal-fired power plants so that U.S. finance is no longer a dirtier alternative to the World Bank.
- Meet America’s climate finance pledge and provide “green debt relief” for developing countries that make climate commitments. Biden will recommit the United States to the Green Climate Fund, fulfilling America’s pledge
- re-establish the U.S. commitment to remove Arctic waters from consideration for oil and gas leasing, he will also work with Arctic Council member nations to extend this moratorium
- Biden will reinstate federal protections, rolled back by the Trump Administration, that were designed to protect communities.
