Joe Biden is preparing to deal with climate change in a way no U.S. president has done before – by mobilizing his entire administration to take on the challenge from every angle in a strategic, integrated way.
The strategy is evident in the people Biden has chosen for his Cabinet and senior leadership roles: Most have track records for incorporating climate-change concerns into a wide range of policies.
Energy policy isn’t just about electricity. It’s about how homes are built, how they generate power and feed it into the grid and how the transportation, industrial and agriculture sectors evolve. It’s about regulations, trade rules, government purchases and funding for research for innovation. Coordination and collaboration among agencies and different levels of government is crucial.
Here are some of the biggest challenges ahead and what Biden’s “all hands on deck” approach might mean.
Dealing with all those climate policy rollbacks. From its first days, the Trump administration began trying to nullify or weaken U.S. environmental regulations. It had rolled back 84 environmental rules by November 2020, according to a New York Times analysis of research from Harvard and Columbia law schools.
Pressuring other countries to take action. Biden can quickly bring the U.S. back into the international Paris climate agreement. But reestablishing the nation’s leadership role with the international climate community is a much longer haul.
Former Secretary of State John Kerry will lead this effort as special envoy for climate change, a new Cabinet-level position.
Cleaning up the power sector. The Biden-Harris climate plan aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector to net-zero by 2035.
While 62 major utilities in the U.S. have set their own emission reduction goals, most leaders in that sector would argue that requiring net-zero emissions by 2035 is too much too fast.
One problem is that states are often more involved in regulating the power sector than the federal government. And, when federal regulations are passed, they are often challenged in court.
What to do about vehicles, buildings and agriculture. Transportation is now the nation’s leading emitter of carbon dioxide. Decarbonizing it will require a quicker transition away from the internal combustion engine.
Again, this is a challenge that requires many parts and levels of government working for the same goal. It will require expanding carbon-free transportation. That involves regulations and funding for research and development from multiple departments, as well as trade agreements, tax incentives for electric vehicles and a shift in how government agencies buy vehicles.
The other “hard-to-decarbonize” sectors – buildings, industry and agriculture – will require sophistication and collaboration among all federal departments and agencies unlike any previous efforts.
A new comprehensive climate bill. The best way to tackle these sectors would be a comprehensive climate bill that sets a cap, or limit, on emissions and tightens it over time. Here, the problem lies more in the politics of the moment than anything else. Biden and his team will have to persuade lawmakers from fossil fuel-producing states to work on these efforts.
Until Congress passes comprehensive climate legislation, Biden will have to rely on agencies issuing new rules, which are vulnerable to being revoked by future administrations.
To meet its ambitious goals, the administration will need everyone, progressives and conservatives, state and local leaders, and the private sector, to work with them. n
Bill Ritter Jr. is director of Colorado State University’s Center for the New Energy Economy. He is a former Colorado governor. Distributed by The Associated Press.
