After ‘historical’ US climate bill, scientists urge global action

Scientists on Monday welcomed US President Joe Biden’s passage of a “historic” climate bill while calling on other major emitters – namely the European Union – to follow suit and implement ambitious plans to cut emissions.

The bill, which would see an unprecedented $370 billion investment in cutting US emissions 40 percent by 2030, should provide a springboard for green investment and kick-start the shift toward renewable energy in the world’s largest emitter.

The Senate passed Sunday night after months of tortuous negotiations and only after addressing a number of tax and energy provisions in Biden’s original proposal.

Michael Bahl, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the bill was of particular relevance to EU lawmakers, who he said were on the cusp of adopting “the world’s most ambitious climate policy” in the bloc’s “fit for 55” format. plan.

“European Union policy can succeed economically and politically only when the main emitters and trading partners take similar measures,” he told AFP.

“Especially in the face of the changing geopolitical landscape, US-EU cooperation is key and the bill is an important enabler.”

The EU initiative – which envisages a 55 per cent cut in emissions by 2030 – does not yet have a specific budget. But a recent assessment found that member states would need to spend €350 billion more annually than they did between 2011-2020 in order to meet climate and energy goals.

Simon Lewis, professor of global opportunity science at University College London, said the US bill showed how lawmakers can advance climate legislation while responding to voters’ short-term concerns about fuel price inflation.

“It’s really important that the world’s largest economy invests in climate and is doing so as part of a package to create jobs and a new, cleaner, greener economy,” Lewis told AFP.

“Part of this is the inflation tackling package. I think this shows the world how to pass climate policy, by connecting it to things that really matter to ordinary people, to make sure it is part of a comprehensive package to improve people’s lives.”

Huge increase

The independent research group Rhodium Group said the “historic and significant” bill – officially the Inflation Reduction Act – would reduce US emissions by at least 31 percent by 2040, compared to 2005 levels.

However, he said, given favorable macroeconomic conditions including increasingly high prices for fossil fuels and cheap renewables, a 44 percent reduction in emissions would have been possible.

“The cost of living here is in part because we didn’t get rid of fossil fuels early enough,” Lewis said. “This bill means that the transition away from fossil fuels is about to accelerate.”

Eric Beinhocker, director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford Martin School, said the bill would lead to a “massive increase” in clean technology and would lower the cost of renewables even further.

“This is especially important when the world suffers not only from the climatic effects of fossil fuels, but also from their rising costs,” he told AFP.

The legislation is saving millions to help preserve forests and billions in tax breaks for some of the country’s most polluting industries to speed up their transition to greener technology. It almost didn’t happen, however, with the bill delayed for several months after Democrat Joe Manchin blocked Biden’s plan for better rebuilding of more expensive infrastructure.

The failure of the United States to agree on an ambitious plan to cut emissions would have constituted a “major impediment to the viability of the Paris Agreement,” Bahl said.

The 2015 agreement called on countries to act to limit global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and envisages a safer heating ceiling of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

With the temperature rising by just over 1.1°C so far, the Earth is already being damaged by extreme weather such as droughts and storms caused by high temperatures.

just the beginning

Although acknowledging that the bill represents progress, scholars have been quick to stress that it is far from perfect. Michael Mann, director of the Penn State Center for Science, Sustainability, and Media, said the bill’s commitment to building new gas pipelines was a “step back.”

“It is difficult to reconcile the promise to decarbonize our economy with a commitment to new fossil fuel infrastructure,” he said.

Only action on a global scale can achieve the emissions reductions needed to stave off the worst effects of global warming, said Radhika Khosla, of Oxford University’s Smith College.

“We are feeling the effects of climate change,” she said.

“This summer alone, parts of the world as disparate as China, the UK and Tunisia have all experienced deadly heatwaves and set records. “Durable change will require ambitious action from all of us,” she told AFP.

08/08/2022 by AlizeLaVie Source AFP