WASHINGTON, United States | Joe Biden will unveil at his virtual climate summit on Thursday the United States’ new global warming target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by between 50 and 52% by 2030 compared to 2005, announced a US official.
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This objective almost doubles Washington’s former commitment of a decrease from 26% to 28% by 2025.
“This announcement will be made during the climate summit that President Biden is organizing, in order to challenge the world to meet its ambitions and fight the climate crisis,” said the US official.
This objective, which is ambitious, is the American contribution to hope to participate in keeping global warming below + 2 ° C, if possible +1.5 ° C, compared to the pre-industrial era, as foreseen by Paris agreement concluded in 2015.
It should make it possible to keep another promise of Joe Biden, of carbon neutrality of the American economy by 2050, assured the person in charge, without however detailing at this stage the measures sector by sector to achieve it.
Joe Biden joined from the start of his mandate in January this key international agreement which his predecessor Donald Trump had slammed the door.
He now wants, with his summit, to be a driving force in the global fight against global warming, urging the other major polluting countries, starting with China, to step up their own pace in view of the major UN conference. , COP26 scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland, later this year.
The new US target “gives us significant leverage” to “push for climate action abroad,” argued another US official.
With the new announcements made in recent days or to be made Thursday by Japan, Canada, the European Union or the United Kingdom, countries “which account for more than half of the world economy” will now have made commitments reduction of emissions, in line, as far as they are concerned, with the planetary objective of reducing global warming, he said.
But as it stands, this same objective remains broadly out of reach at this stage.