Environmental policy of the Joe Biden administration

Joe Biden nominated a group of officials having high motivation to act on climate change and considerable experience on the issue, in key roles in his administration. They are often referred as Biden's climate team:

[15][16]

During his Inauguration Biden said: "A cry for survival comes from the planet itself, a cry that can't be any more desperate or any more clear". Upon his first hours in office on January 20, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order that rejoined the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement. He also directed to return to the policy of "social carbon cost", meaning when calculating how much some measure will cost, include in the calculation the costs of the climate change impacts that can be prevented as a result of that measure. Those orders were welcomed by environmental groups and by the Union of Concerned Scientists.[17][18]

President Biden also halted further development of the Keystone Pipeline through executive order, additionally directing agencies to review and reverse more than 100 Trump actions on the environment.[19] Part of the actions of Trump was not welcomed by the industry, for example, when Trump abolished the standards in energy efficiency in the car industry the companies decided to meet those standards voluntarily[17]

Biden takes some actions to improve the link between science and the policy of his administration including in environmental issues. It includes improving the environmental reviews of big projects before approval, according to the National Environmental Policy Act, improve the function of the Environment Protection Agency, reestablishing a scientific body to calculate the social cost of greenhouse gases (not only CO2). He ordered to stop the oil and gas drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, beginning the process of restoring the national monuments in their previous borders. He ordered to consider the voices of Indigenous peoples of the Americas in the process of approving projects. He has begun the process of installing standards for Methane emissions.[20]

One week after becoming president Biden signed several orders for fighting climate change and protect environment. He ordered the Interior Secretary to stop new oil and gas drilling in federal lands and water and review existing projects. Another order sets a target of protecting 30% of the lands and waters of the USA by the year 2030. The same order begun the creation of a plan for climate financing and a climate target for the USA. Biden also signed a presidential memorandum of preventing political pressure on scientists.

Because Biden sees climate change as an issue with a serious impacts for security, he ordered to the head of American intelligence Avril Haines to prepare a report about those impacts. Because he thinks that climate change have a big impact on foreign policy he included John Kerry the Climate Envoy in the National Security Council. He created a National Climate Task Force "composed of officials from 21 federal agencies and departments." and a White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy. Biden said that ""In my view, we've already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis and we can't wait any longer. We see it with our own eyes, we feel it, we know it in our bones" and "It's time to act". He also mentioned that climate action is linked with other aspects of his agenda: health, jobs, security[4]

Biden also ordered to increase 2 times the amount of energy produced from offshore wind turbines by the year 2030.[21]

On the same day Biden ordered to end all Fossil fuel subsidies. He ordered to begin the process of turning the power sector of the USA completely fossil - free by the year 2035 and to ensure that all the federal vehicles are electric. He ordered to increase the production of renewable energy on federal lands and water, to create the Civilian Climate Corps, to make the fossil fuel companies responsible for repairing faults the lead to environmental damage. For ensuring Environmental justice, he ordered that 40% of all climate investments will be sent to the most vulnerable communities and created a special body for dealing with the issue: White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council.[22]

2 conservation groups, write a petition to Joe Biden, asking him to take steps for saving the American bumble bee from extinction. The population of this bee in the USA had declined by 89% due to "threats including habitat loss, pesticides, disease, climate change, competition with honey bees, and loss of genetic diversity"[23]

The General Secretary of the United Nations congratulated Biden, mentioning that with the United States rejoin of the agreement, countries responsible for two thirds of the global GHG emission will make pledges of becoming carbon neutral and without United States it is only a half.[24] President of France Emmanuel Macron congratulated Biden saying 'Welcome back to the Paris Agreement!'[25]

John Kerry the Climate Envoy said that the climate pledge of China to zero emissions by 2060 is "not good enough". Biden administration is urging China to improve it.[26]

Biden is planning to convene a global climate summit on the Earth day, 22 of April 2021. The summit should encourage leaders to step up their commitments, so they will be in line with the scientists' recommendations. USA have not an official Nationally Determined Contribution as for now because it was not a part of the Paris agreement for some time, probably a summary of it will be presented by this time. Experts said that for limit enough temperature rise, USA should reduce emission approximately by 50% from the level of 2005 by the year 2030.[27]

One week after Biden became president, he had begun the process of creating a special plan for financially helping low income countries on Climate change mitigation and Climate change adaptation[22]

Environmental organizations and scientists cheered the decisions of Biden on climate change on the first day of his presidency.[20][17] The decisions taken one week after were welcomed by the environmental groups, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sunrise Movement and partially by Indigenous Environmental Network. The Western Energy Alliance filed a lawsuit against the decision to stop giving new permits for oil and gas drilling on federal lands and water, while the Indigenous Environmental Network said that this decision is not going far enough.[22]

Some have criticized Biden's environmental policies, claiming that they will delete many jobs. Biden claims that they will create many jobs instead. Some are concerned that the ban on new oil and gas drilling on public land will not reduce GHG emissions because less than half of existing permits are really used. However, Biden ordered also to review the current permits.[21]