On Climate, Biden Must Do More than Undo Trump’s Damage

On Climate, Biden Must Do More than Undo Trump’s Damage

3 years ago
Anonymous $RGO3jP_V_c

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/on-climate-biden-must-do-more-than-undo-trumps-damage/

One word sums up what President-elect Joe Biden must do to address climate change: Restart.

In 2015 nearly 200 nations agreed to the Paris Agreement, which aims to prevent the worst impacts of climate change by limiting global warming to belowtwo degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by 2100. The U.S. pledged to reduce its greenhouse gasemissions 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. Then Donald Trump was elected. He soon announced the U.S. would pull out of the accord, and his administration spent four years relentlessly rolling back regulations intended to curb emissions and protect the environment. Even though many coal-burning power plants, the worst carbon polluters, shut down as market forces expanded the role of cheaper, cleaner natural gas, wind and solar power, and even though states, cities and some industries cut emissions, Trump’s rollbacks could add the equivalent of 1.8 billion metric tons of CO2 to the atmosphere by 2035, according to the Rhodium Group, a highly regarded, independent research organization.