Hoping on Biden’s climate leadership

It is 13 years since President Biden, then a Senator, supported clean coal technologies and declined to vote on the unsuccessful Climate Security Act of 2007. What has changed the former Senator from Delaware into a global political leader on climate action is arguably the intersection of a number of factors.

To my mind, he feels a need to continue in Obama’s climate legacy, as increasing compelling scientific evidence calls for a decisive climate action to be taken sooner than later. Also, there is the issue of the socioeconomic benefits and transformation that a cleaner energy transition holds for America; and ultimately, the significance of US rejoining the 2015 Paris Accord – which will put the US back at the centre stage of global climate leadership and negotiations. We remember that the US under Trump, pulled out in 2017, a move which effectively took effect on November 4, 2020.

Unlike Trump’s energy plan (zero climate change policy) that enabled and promoted investments in dirty fossil fuels, Biden’s campaign position on climate promised not only to make US to lead in global climate action, but also to spearhead the effort to get every major country to ramp up their national climate targets.

Upon inauguration, President Biden started to make true his promise, first by appointing and swearing in John Kerry as the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, and appointing Gina McCarthy, a former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as National Climate Advisor. Kerry and McCarthy will ensure that Biden’s climate policy fully integrates climate change into US’s foreign policy, national security strategies, as well informs US trade policy as a climate tool.

Domestically, McCarthy will lead efforts that specifically commit to: bringing the US economy to net-zero emissions as 2050 comes round, by investing over $2 Trillion to achieve a carbon free electricity sector in or around 2035. There will be further leveraging of over $5 Trillion in private sector, state and local investments. McCarthy will use Executive Actions to aggressively reduce methane emissions, enforce stricter fuel-economy standards, drive up nationwide energy efficiency standards; and initiate and implement major reforms in transportation, agriculture and housing to reduce the carbon footprint. Importantly, the policy promises to create millions of new jobs and advance social and environmental justice for all Americans, particularly fence line communities that have been disproportionately impacted by coal, oil, gas and power plant operations.

Internationally, Kerry will mobilize and drive a global effort to get every major country to increase their national climate targets, with the hope that this will support most climate vulnerable populations and increase collective climate resilience. How this will be achieved in reality is still uncertain, as the US is yet to provide specific numbers for its new ambitious climate plan. Currently, this is the work that McCarthy will have to lead and agree on with other government departments and agencies and announce to the world before Biden’s big Leaders Summit on Climate Change proposed to hold on this year’s Earth Day. Already, Bill Gates has urged the US government to increase her budget for climate and clean energy research to at least $35 Billion annually. More demands from other climate environmental campaigners or groups are most likely.

One thing is certain, neither the Leaders Summit on Climate Change nor the US’s ambitious climate policy and plan has the potential to make up for the 4 years of US absence from the global climate stage as Secretary Kerry has tried to portray. While US climate leadership is key to directing global climate action and influencing other countries’ climate commitments, a simple re-emergence and proposed climate plan after 4 years of abandonment, which does not lead to domestic climate action, fulfilling of national targets and international financial obligations especially to Green Climate Fund (GCF) is not enough to undo the impact of the setbacks climate diplomacy and action suffered under the Trump administration.

Today, the global climate community especially the Global South is looking forward to US climate policy and plan for a shift from business as usual, which I strongly believe will lead to the following:

1. US financial contributions to GCF and other climate finance commitments restored and increased, a move that has the potential to get other countries such as Russia and Australia to recommit to funding GCF;

2. In the spirit of supporting most vulnerable populations and increasing collective climate resilience just as President Biden envisions, the US may attune to ensure that the demands of the Global South, particularly African countries’ demands to borrow at reduced interest rates, and for the utilization of Africa’s unused special drawing rights (SDRs) to finance climate infrastructural projects are met;

3. The commitment and work of US development agencies such as United States Agency for International Development (USAID), United States Africa Development Foundation (USADF) toward building more clean energy, socially, environmentally sustainable, just and climate resilient centered programmes will be increased;

4. Opportunities for learning, knowledge development and capacity building between the US and Global South institutions particularly collaborations on clean energy and climate research and innovation will likely be increased; and,

5. Approaches that the US may utilize in solving social, environmental challenges and injustices that exist in age long fossil fuel exploiting and processing communities may become useful for other countries that would be affected by the global energy transition.

While these sound obvious and easily achievable, they may be out of the reach of the Global South if they fail to engage correctly, articulate our demands well, negotiate well, sustain our interests and commit to fulfilling our own side of the deal.

As for now, the global climate community is waiting for the US to announce its new climate ambitions and the outcome of the Leaders Summit on Climate Change ahead of the COP26 Summit later this November in Glasgow. Just like other opportunities, we hope this chance for the world to make some real progress will not be squandered.

Okafor Akachukwu is a Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), University of Sussex trained energy, environment, climate change and sustainability expert and Principal Partner, Change Partners International. [email protected].