Biden just unveiled America’s ambitious new climate goal. Trump will assuredly undo it

By Ella Nilsen, CNN

(CNN) — The Biden administration just announced an aggressive target for the US to cut its planet-warming pollution over the next decade – a goal that will all but assuredly be reversed by President-elect Donald Trump in his first days in office.

The ambitious new target aims to cut US climate pollution to 61-66% below 2005 levels by 2035, which would have been a challenge even if voters had elected another Democratic president. Trump has said he intends to drill for more oil and gas, shred federal climate regulations and seek to overturn Biden’s clean energy law.

A new target is required every five years by the international Paris Agreement, which Trump has promised to once again pull the US out of. Biden made climate one of the centerpieces of his presidency – by announcing the US target well before its February 2025 due date, the administration is signaling the path America should strive to take against the headwinds of an anti-climate Trump administration.

“We’re confident in America’s ability to rally around this new climate goal, because while the US federal government under President Trump may put climate action on the back burner, the work to contain climate change is going to continue in the United States with commitment and passion and belief,” White House senior adviser John Podesta told reporters. “That’s not wishful thinking. It’s happened before.”

Some independent analysis is not as optimistic. If Trump successfully repeals Biden’s climate law and unravels key regulations, the US will only be able to cut pollution 24-40% below 2005 levels in the next decade, according to the nonpartisan climate think tank Rhodium Group.

“For this new, very ambitious target for 2035, we’re not on track – and we are likely to be further off track under a Trump administration,” said Kate Larsen, who leads Rhodium’s international energy and climate research.

Larsen noted the US cut its emissions under Trump’s first term and said it’s likely to do so again. But the pace of cutting planet-warming pollution is really what matters, she noted.

“Every year we delay taking sufficiently ambitious action means that in subsequent years we’ll need to go even further, faster,” Larsen said. “A lack of new policy, the inability to defend the policy that we have in place today, will undermine those efforts.”

Senior Biden administration officials said their ambitious goal considered the fact that the Trump administration is likely to sprint the other way and leans heavily on states and businesses stepping up.

Climate modelers said there is wild uncertainty on what the next four years will bring for US climate policy. It is unclear whether Trump will be able to convince congressional Republicans to kill Biden’s clean energy law, which is pouring billions of dollars and thousands of jobs into GOP districts. Renewables like wind and solar are far cheaper than fossil fuels, and the number of electric vehicles on the roads is growing.

“We need to be moving as fast as possible on climate. But I think that some amount of progress is baked in,” said Robbie Orvis, senior director of modeling and analysis at think tank Energy Innovation.

Biden oversaw a historic climate and clean energy bill and directing his federal agencies to release ambitious regulations cutting greenhouse gases from vehicles, power plants and oil and gas operations.

In a statement, Biden said he was “proud” of overseeing “the boldest climate agenda in American history.”

But the US is on track to fall short of the goal Biden announced at the beginning of his presidency – cutting 45% of its climate pollution by the end of this decade, rather than the 50-52% laid out in the target.

The US isn’t the only climate laggard. Scientists say that most countries are not getting off fossil fuels fast enough to stop dramatic warming of the planet. Data shows 2024 will be the hottest year on record and the first calendar year to exceed the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Experts said it’s key for the Biden administration to set a strong goal – even if Trump claws it back – as other high-polluting countries, including China, prepare their own climate targets.

“I think it’s a really important signal,” Larsen said. “The US is demonstrating that we are there as partners with the rest of the world, setting that that long term vision – even if we for the next four years won’t have a full federal government organized around achieving that.”

Climate experts are now looking to individual states to build clean energy and implement climate action. While California and New York are signaling ambitious climate actions of their own, clean energy is also booming in red states. Texas is generating by far the most electricity from wind power and is fast deploying battery energy storage. Electric vehicle manufacturing is booming in southern states like Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina – spurred in large part by Biden’s law.

“We have this small but not insignificant contingent of House Republicans who are openly talking about needing to protect [the law],” Orvis said. “It’s because it’s delivering jobs and savings for households.”

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