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Joe Biden doubles US target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

The American president Joe Biden unveiled today, at the Climate Summit, the new, almost double, US goal of reducing pollutant emissions to signal America’s return to the fight against global warming and to push the rest of the world to “take action.”

The 46th US president promised at the start of this online two-day summit with some 40 world leaders to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the world’s largest economy by 50% to 52% by 2030 compared to 2005.

This target almost doubles Washington’s previous commitment to a 26-28% reduction by 2025.

Warning of “the price of inaction”, Joe Biden called on the rest of the world to follow the American example.

“We must all take action,” he said. “We must accelerate,” Biden said, noting that “no country can solve this crisis on its own.”

That target almost doubles Washington’s previous commitment to a reduction of between 26% and 28% by 2025.

The Democratic president will address the summit this morning in front of about 40 world leaders invited, including China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, India’s Narendra Modi and France. Emanuel Macron or even Pope Francis.

The intention of the American president is “to challenge the world to meet his ambitions and to fight the climate crisis”, the American official noted.

This goal, which appears ambitious, is the US contribution in the hope of keeping global temperatures rising below 2 degrees Celsius, if possible at +1.5 degrees Celsius, relative to pre-industrial levels, as provided for in the agreement. Paris on Climate, concluded in 2015.

Biden, from the first day of his presidency in January, restored his country to the Paris Climate Treaty, from which his predecessor Donald Trump had withdrawn.

The new commitment of the American president, who chose World Earth Day to host his climate summit, is expected to allow the American economy to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The new US target “offers us the means to exert significant pressure” to “boost climate action abroad,” another US official said.

With the new announcements made in recent days or expected to be made today by Japan, Canada, the EU or Britain, countries “representing more than half of the world economy” will now have pledged to reduce Climate change emissions, which are in line with the global goal of reducing global warming, the official said.

However, this global goal seems generally unachievable at this stage given the current state of national commitments.

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