NOTE: This article was posted 1/13/21; President-elect Joe Biden, who takes office on January 20 at noon, has nominated a team of seasoned environmental leaders to fill his Cabinet in positions that will impact the Earth’s unique places, people, and species, now more vulnerable than ever after the Trump administration. Climate will be a top priority of Biden’s core plan for a “clean energy revolution and environmental justice.”
Biden is aware that on January 20, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, only nine years will be left to stop the worst consequences of climate change. Because there’s no time to waste, Biden says he will, “Take executive action on Day 1 to not just reverse all of the damage Trump has done, but go further and faster.” Biden plans to require aggressive methane pollution limits for new and existing oil and gas operations and rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100 percent of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be net-zero emissions.
As President, Biden has promised to permanently protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other public areas impacted by President Donald Trump’s attack on federal lands and waters. Biden says he will ban new oil and gas leasing on public lands and waters. In his first year in office, Biden pledges to work with Congress to enact, legislation that, by the end of his first term, puts the country on “an irreversible path to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions no later than 2050.” Biden wants to require polluters to bear the full cost of the carbon pollution they are emitting. To view the full article visit the Environmental News Service.