Last week’s global summit on climate change yielded some pretty impressive climate commitments from a variety of world leaders. One of the prominent pledges is that from the US which committed to reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2030.
This commitment is expected to be made official in a written “nationally determined contribution,” or NDC. This ambitious goal comes after the US officially rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement this year.
When the US originally joined the Paris Agreement in 2015, it pledged to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2025. As the country is not on track to meet this benchmark, the current administration has been under growing pressure to expand upon those commitments for 2030. Environmental advocates and a group of 300 corporations recently signed on to a letter calling on the administration to cut emissions in half by 2030.
The federal government’s recently proposed $2 trillion infrastructure project paves the way to make transportation changes that support this green goal. Gina McCarthy, a national climate adviser, told NPR, “We are talking about trains. We are talking about ships. We are talking about an opportunity to advance our transportation sector by investing in electric vehicles and battery manufacturing here in the United States, both for vehicles, but also for battery storage opportunities. We’re talking about building a new resilient grid.”
The details of this climate commitment will be laid out in the NDC, including specific changes needed to reach this goal. Much of this transition is expected to be focused on the creation of new jobs in the renewable energy sector through industrial, regulatory, and technological changes. We will continue to follow this story and report on specific measures enacted to achieve this carbon-cutting commitment.
