The United States has returned to the international climate fight after four years in which it was absent from any commitment due to Republican Donald Trump. The president of the United States, Democrat Joe Biden, has pledged this week before 40 world leaders to reduce his country's greenhouse gas emissions by between 50% and 52% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. This promise, applauded by his colleagues and by the UN, leaves a question in the air: has the United States overtaken the European Union in ambition against climate change? Although the comparisons have to be nuanced a lot, the answer is, in principle, no: the European emission reduction target is tougher than the one announced this Thursday by Biden if 1990 is taken as a base, the year that the UN has been using as a reference. for decades. What's more,The EU has a wide legislative body and measures that have been maintained over time that help decarbonize the community economy and that will end up being shielded this year in the first European climate law. The objective that the EU has committed to before the United Nations is to reduce its emissions by 55% in 2030, but compared to 1990.
Regardless of the comparisons, the step taken by Biden aims to place his country at the center of the great global transformation that will involve the decarbonization of the world economy, which should lead to the abandonment of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), main responsible for greenhouse gases. The climate fight is "a moral obligation," Biden said Thursday, but also an "economic" obligation. Or, as John Kerry, the US special envoy for climate, explained at the summit, "this is the greatest opportunity since the Industrial Revolution." And the attitude of Trump, who wanted to bet on coal, hydrocarbon exploration and to prevent the development of less polluting cars, took the United States out of the race towards a transition that did not stop in the world despite the Republican.
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The US returns to the climate fight and promises to cut its emissions by half in a decade
In this industrial and technological race is the European Union, which has been betting for years to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. The fight against climate change has, in fact, become one of the most important identity traits in Europe. And the intention of the European Commission and the 27 is to promote it even more with the multimillion-dollar recovery plan approved by the community institutions. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, recalled this week at the summit that 37% of the funds should go to actions related to climate change. “From the crises we either come out better or we come out worse”, Pope Francis summed up the post-pandemic dilemma in which humanity finds itself. The Pope bet in his speech at the summit on the need for a green recovery.
Point of comparison
To compare the objectives promised to the UN by the US and the European Union, the first thing to look at is where each starts.
Europe reached its peak in emissions in 1990 and since then it has been reducing them steadily, thus complying with what was established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, of 1992, and from which the Kyoto Protocol emanates. and the current Paris Agreement.
However, the US did not reach its emissions ceiling until 2007.
Therefore, when the commitments of both powers are compared taking 1990 as a starting point, the result is that the EU will reduce its emissions by 55% in 2030, while the US cut would be just over 40%. Another benchmark that can be taken is 2010. The UN has urged all countries that, by the end of this decade, global emissions have been reduced by 45% compared to 2010. That is the way to try to the average temperature does not exceed 1.5 degrees of warming this century, according to the Paris Agreement. Taking 2010 as a benchmark, the EU's commitment translates into a 48% cut in emissions in 2030 and that of the United States by 44.8%.
To this must be added another factor: the dependence of each economy on fossil fuels. Although China is the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases, if you look at it in gross terms, the United States is still far ahead of the Asian country when analyzing per capita emissions. The same is the case with the EU: a European emits on average 2.5 times less carbon dioxide than an American.
Although the European Union is presenting ambitious objectives - not enough in any case, as denounced by environmental organizations and green parties - it is the United Kingdom that is showing the greatest international leadership among the great powers. It has committed to reducing its emissions by 68% in 2030 compared to 1990 (58% compared to 2010). And Spain? The objective set out in the climate change law is to cut emissions by 23% by the end of the decade compared to 1990 (38% compared to 2010). Spain did not reach its peak in emissions until 2007 and during the past decade they barely fell for a mixture of economic reasons and a lack of climate measures. Faced with criticism for the lack of ambition, the Government has promised to revise its target upwards in 2023.
Net, gross and fine print
Another factor that must be taken into account when analyzing the commitments that are put on the table - all the signatories of the Paris Agreement must present plans to cut emissions, although each Government decides its objective -: if we talk about net or gross emissions.
Both the European Union and the United States - not the United Kingdom and Spain - speak in their programs of net emission reductions.
This opens the door to offsets through carbon dioxide sinks, such as forests or other still uncertain technological solutions.
Many environmental groups, activists and experts call the inclusion of the concept of net emissions as accounting gimmicks. But the truth is that both the Paris Agreement and the reports of the IPCC, the group of scientists that advises the UN on climate change issues, point to this neutrality when they talk about emission reductions.
The 55% reduction in net emissions promised by Europe becomes 52.8% when it is converted to gross emissions, according to environmental groups. For a true reduction in emissions to occur, the European partners this week decided to put a cap on the gases that can be offset by sinks in 2030: 225 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (the unit that is used with the gases of greenhouse effect); In 2019, the 27 emitted 3,600 million tons of gases in total.
What the US will do now on this issue is anyone's guess.
The plan that it has presented to the United Nations with its new goals emphasizes forests, agricultural soils and oceans as sinks.
But the United States government must now develop its internal programs and implement all the measures it proposes to make up for lost time in the fight against climate change.
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