Earth Day Marks Return of American Global Leadership on Climate

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™

 

View Larger +

The activities planned for this year’s Earth Day provide another welcome sign of the return of American global leadership on the climate, ending a damaging 4-year retreat from responsibility, best encapsulated by President Trump’s withdrawal from the landmark Paris Global Climate Accords. 

President Biden will mark the 51st Earth Day this Thursday by holding a virtual Leaders’ Summit on the Climate, convening 40 heads of state.  Employing the leverage created by the United States once again taking serious domestic steps to combat climate change, rejoining the Paris Accords, and substantially accelerating its original Paris greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. the president and John Kerry, his special envoy on the climate, are lining up new stronger commitments from other large carbon emitters timed for showcasing at the Summit.   Among the nations that the Biden Administration is finalizing more robust climate commitments with are Japan, South Korea, and Canada, according to The New York Times.

Along with featuring new commitments by other nations, the Biden Administration will use the Summit to highlight the United States substantially speeded-up timeline for substantially reducing its own carbon footprint. As Alice C. Hill, the David Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations said, “The summit also aims to show that the United States is in a position to lead and that it’s serious in cutting its own emissions. If the United States doesn’t come forward and demonstrate that it’s committed to addressing climate threats, it is hard to imagine the rest of the world will feel as energized in that endeavor.”

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

The Earth Day Summit is designed to generate momentum for November’s UN Climate Change Conference, hosted by Great Britain.  This is where the nations of the world will present their updated, accelerated and stronger plans for reducing their carbon footprints as outlined in the Paris agreement—an agreement to which nearly every nation in the world is a party.

The United States’ renewed leadership on the climate is essential to limiting global temperature increases to the 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit that scientists say will enable us to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.  Coupled with other positive developments, such as the rapidly expanding use of non-carbon producing renewable energy, mainly resulting from rapidly declining costs as technology has improved and economies of scale are being realized, proactive and credible American climate diplomacy gives us a fighting chance to leave a habitable planet for our children.

There is still a long hard road ahead. On this Earth Day, however, thanks to a renewed American commitment to curbing greenhouse gas emissions at home and abroad, there are solid grounds for optimism.

 

View Larger +

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.

 

Related Articles

 

Enjoy this post? Share it with others.

 
 

Sign Up for the Daily Eblast

I want to follow on Twitter

I want to Like on Facebook