New US climate law expected to slow warming

Massive Clean Energy Incentives in US Law signed on tuesday by President Joe Biden should reduce the future global warming “not a lot, but not insignificantly, either,” according to a climate scientist who led an independent analysis of the package.

Even with nearly $375 billion in tax credits and other financial incentives for renewable energy in the law, the United States is still not doing its part to help the world stay within another tenths of a degree of warming, according to a new analysis from says Climate Action Tracker. The group of scientists examines and rates each country’s climate goals and actions. He still calls the US action “insufficient” but praised some progress.

“This is the biggest thing that has ever happened to the US in terms of climate policy,” said Bill Hare, director of Australia-based Climate Analytics, which publishes the tracker. “When you think about the last few decades, you know that, not wanting to be rude, there’s a lot of talk, but not a lot of action.”

This is action, he said. Not as much as Europe, and Americans still spew twice as much heat-trapping gases per person as Europeans, Hare said. The US has also put more heat-trapping gas into the air over time than any other nation.

Before the law, Climate Action Tracker calculated that if all other nations made similar efforts to the US, it would lead to a catastrophically warming world: 5.4 to 7.2 degrees (3 to 4 degrees Celsius) above pre-industrial times. Now, in a best-case scenario, which Hare said is reasonable and likely, the US actions, if followed, would lead to just 3.6 degrees (2 degrees Celsius) of warming. If things don’t work out as optimistically as Hare thinks, warming would be 5.4 degrees (3 degrees Celsius), according to the analysis.

Even in the best of cases, the internationally accepted general goal of limiting warming to 2.7 degrees warming (1.5 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times. And the world has already warmed 2 degrees (1.1 degrees Celsius) since the mid-19th century.

Other nations “that we know have been refraining from coming forward with more ambitious policies and targets” are now more likely to take action in a “significant global spillover,” Hare said. She said officials from Chile and some Southeast Asian countries, which he declined to name, told her this summer that they were waiting for action from the United States first.

And China “won’t say this out loud, but I think they will see the US move as something they need to match,” Hare said.

Scientists at Climate Action Tracker calculated that, without any other new climate policies, US carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 will be 26% to 42% below 2005 levels, which is still it is below the country’s goal of halving emissions. Analysts at the Rhodium Group think tank calculated pollution cuts of 31% to 44% from the new law.

Other analysts and scientists said the Climate Action Tracker numbers make sense.

Scientists say the new climate law is likely to slow warming. #USPoli #ClimateChange #ClimateAction #GlobalWarming

“The US contributions to greenhouse gas emissions are huge,” said climatologist Gabriel Vecchi of Princeton University. “So reducing that will definitely have a global impact.”

Samantha Gross, director of climate and energy at the Brookings Institution, called the new law a down payment on US emissions reductions.

“Now that this is done, the US can celebrate a little bit and then focus on implementation and what needs to happen next,” Gross said.

Associated Press climate and environment coverage is supported by several private foundations. See more about the AP climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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