Climate Crunch Time – The US’s Progress Towards Global Goals

The world is making inadequate progress towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In November, climate institutes collaborated on the State of Climate Action report explaining that efforts to limit average global temperature increases are failing across almost all indicators. As one of the signatories to the Paris Agreement in 2015, the U.S. pledged to policies and climate finance aimed at limiting warming to 1.5 C greater than preindustrial levels. However, when examining the State of Climate Action report’s recommendations, it is clear that the U.S. could be doing more. Voter beliefs, demographics, and the economy are proving obstacles to progress.

The Paris Agreement focuses so heavily on the 1.5 C marker because research shows that beyond that point, climate impacts are potentially irreversible. Human adaptation would be more difficult, due to greater temperature extremes, floods, droughts, and rising sea levels.

The Climate Action Tracker provides an up-to-date assessment on how each country performs in terms of their policies and actions, climate finance, their global ‘fair share’, and progress towards their Nationally Determined Contribution target. Not a single country is rated “1.5 C Paris Agreement compatible.” The U.S. is rated “insufficient” overall. India and China, by far the two most populous countries in the world, currently rate as “highly insufficient.” In 2023, the United Nations (UN) undertook a Global Stocktake which reconfirmed that we are not on trajectory to limit warming to 1.5 C. World leaders must be held responsible for upholding the promises their countries made to the Paris Agreement.

The State of Climate Action report suggests several policies to set the world back on track for 2030. These include increasing wind and solar power from 14% to 24%, phasing out coal in electricity generators seven times faster than current rates, and expanding rapid transit infrastructure six times faster. Also recommended: reducing annual deforestation rates by four times, and reducing cow, goat, and sheep meat consumption to approximately two servings per week.

Pew research suggests that 78% of Democrats now consider climate change a major threat to the country’s wellbeing, up from 58% 10 years ago. Only 23% of Republicans share that concern, similar to levels from nearly a decade ago. Republicans over 65 years old tend to still support oil, coal, and natural gas production.

Democrat support enabled the Biden Administration to introduce the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, hailed by the Department of the Treasury and Department of Energy as the single largest investment in climate in U.S. history. Recent research found that its provisions could lead to economy-wide emissions reductions of between 43% and 48% from 2005 levels by 2035. However, the way it was packaged as pro-growth and inflation-reducing is revealing. Climate measures were bundled in with taxes and healthcare to make it more palatable to Republican legislators and their districts, demonstrating the hurdles even a Democratic administration faces to passing climate legislation.

Addressing the expansion of rapid mass transit infrastructure is highlighted in the State of Climate Action report. Expanding mass transit in the U.S. will be a significant challenge due to funding and popularity issues. America’s biggest transit systems are facing a fiscal crisis amid diminishing pandemic aid. Post-pandemic ridership only rebounded to an average of 70% of pre-pandemic levels, and rising labor costs and inflation make maintaining service difficult. Another reason expanding mass transit is unlikely to hit the President’s priority list is that even pre-pandemic, only about 7.8 million people, or 5% of the U.S. workforce, used public transit. Although the eight largest transit agencies serve regions that contribute a combined $6 trillion to the national economy annually, their funding and expansion is under local rather than national governance.

A more promising green transit option for the U.S. is electric vehicles (EVs). Two-thirds of Americans said they would consider buying an EV to reduce their personal impact on climate change, and the Biden Administration funded EV incentives in the IRA. However, as reported last year, electric vehicles are less sustainable than mass transit. EV batteries are composed of rare earth minerals, whose mining process can cause water shortages. They also still require electricity to charge. Meanwhile, public transit serves far more people and is more easily administered in a circular economy model, with centralized repurposing and recycling of resources. However, given U.S. geography and entrenched habits, it is far more feasible for Biden to focus on EVs.

U.S. policymakers also face challenges with the final policy suggestion in the State of Climate Action Report of reducing red meat consumption. In 2020, the U.S. had the highest per capita meat consumption in the world: 149 kg compared to the world average of 63 kg. Producing red meat is resource-intensive and creates a lot of methane, so it contributes much more to greenhouse gas emissions than other foods. While 37% of Americans have cut down on meat consumption in the past year to mitigate their climate impact, there’s still a long way to go. The Biden administration’s 2021 U.S. Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan addressed methane emissions in the agriculture sector by focusing on an incentive-based program which rewards ranchers and farmers for reducing emissions. However, by framing agricultural methane reductions as a voluntary partnership, the policy makes concessions for the U.S. meat industry and meat eaters.

The U.S. is making some progress on its Paris Agreement targets. Recognizing the priorities of voters, the Biden administration has focused on clean energy, particularly through the Inflation Reduction Act. However, the President has focused less on addressing key issues such as transit and agricultural emissions. Like every other country, the U.S. will need to do better in key areas for reducing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming. The State of Climate Action report recognizes that while change is difficult, smart policies and incentives, leadership, innovation, strong institutions and behaviour change are possible – and it is not too late.

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Bistline, J., Blanford, G., Brown, M., Burtraw, D., Domeshek, M., Farbes, J., Fawcett, A., Hamilton, A., Jenkins, J., Jones, R., King, B., Kolus, H., Larsen, J., Levin, A., Mahajan, M., Marcy, C., Mayfield, E., McFarland, J., McJeon, H., … Zhao, A. (2023). Emissions and energy impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act. Science, 380(6652), 1324–1327. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adg3781