WASHINGTON – More than 300 companies, including Google, McDonalds and Walmart, are urging the Biden administration to nearly double the United States’s target to cut emissions to warm the planet ahead of the April 22nd Global Climate Change Summit.
In a letter to President Biden released Tuesday morning, the CEOs of some of the country’s largest corporations will urge the government to set a new target for the Paris Agreement that will cut carbon, methane and other emissions that warm the planet by at least 50 percent below the level from 2005 to 2030
That’s about what most large environmental groups want, and business leaders called the goal “ambitious and achievable”.
Former President Donald J. Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement and removed the emissions reduction targets set by the Obama administration, which many environmentalists had considered too weak. President Obama had pledged to cut national emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.
With Mr Biden pledging to look deeply into climate change, climate change activists are watching how much more ambitious his goals will be than those he set as Vice President. Mr Biden, who brought the United States back to the Paris Agreement on inauguration day, said the United States would announce new targets for the Paris Agreement at or ahead of a virtual summit of world leaders to be held next week on the day of the Earth aligns.
According to two administrative officials familiar with the considerations, the target is expected to be an area that includes a 50 percent reduction in emissions.
The business letter organizers hoped that such a private sector message – including electricity utilities like Exelon and Pacific Gas & Electric, and dozens of companies based in Republican districts – would be well received at Congress. Other signatories include Target, Verizon and Altria Group, the parent company of tobacco giant Philip Morris USA, which was once a firm ally of the Republican Party, and Philip Morris International.
and Philip Morris, the tobacco giant who was once a staunch ally of the Republican Party.
The effort also underscores the delicate path business leaders are taking in the post-Trump era. Your decision to break with Republicans on issues such as suffrage and racial justice has upset their traditional allies in the GOP. If the Biden administration is pushed to aggressively combat climate change, Republicans who have long struggled with emissions regulations could become further alienated as “job killers” and make American business less competitive.
“I think this signals a major shift in the corporate community’s understanding of the urgency of climate change as a systemic financial risk,” said Anne Kelly, vice president of government affairs at the nonprofit sustainability organization Ceres, who organized the letter.
Republican lawmakers have given no indication that they’re likely to waver, but they have phrased their opposition in defense of consumers, not businesses.
“The Paris Agreement will lead to increased energy costs for Americans, while Russia and China increase greenhouse gas emissions,” Wyoming Senator John Barrasso said in a statement. He predicted that any target Mr. Biden announces will “punish”.
Patrick Flynn, vice president of sustainability at Salesforce, who signed the letter, hopes companies will stand up for Congress to support the goal of the Biden administration.
“We know it will create millions of jobs, we know this is a good thing for the economy, and we know that if we do it right, we can do it in a way that will leave no one behind,” said he.
Ralph Izzo, president and chairman of the Public Service Enterprise Group, a New Jersey-based energy company, said he supported the 50 percent goal because he saw the effects of climate change on his state.
“It is important that we take significant action against the threat,” he said.
The corporate response is all the more remarkable given that Mr Biden’s plan to contain climate change would be paid for in large part by increasing corporate tax rates, which will raise objections at least from some climate-conscious companies. He also called for a standard for clean electricity and promised new regulations for the utility sector, automobile manufacturers, and the oil and gas industries.
Mr. Flynn said his company had a history of backing tax increases and called Mr. Biden’s $ 2 trillion infrastructure proposal “a good investment” over the long term. Other companies that signed the letter avoided questions about the tax plan.
Ms. Kelley said she believes corporations can “decouple” the commitments the United States must make to mitigate climate change, whatever differences they may have with the administration on how to pay. “I think they see this as a separate series of negotiations,” she said.
Under the Paris Agreement, nearly 200 nations have set their own voluntary targets for emissions reduction by 2025, including large developing countries like China and India. The rules of the agreement do not penalize countries for not achieving the goals, but rather require countries to set them.
The United States is now less than halfway to its original destination.
The concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide continue to rise. According to a recent measurement at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, concentrations were recently above 420 ppm for the first time since levels were recorded.
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