President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion plan to tackle climate change aims to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions no later than 2050 and invest $400 billion into clean energy. Although the plan is ambitious, it is missing some important elements for successful climate change mitigation like addressing climate migration and infrastructure planning.
President Biden signed several executive orders re-establishing climate standards that were dismantled under the Trump administration. Biden’s goal is to make the United States carbon neutral by 2050, largely by replacing fossil fuel energy generation and transportation with renewables, which are becoming the cheapest energy sources in the United States. Today, the levelized cost of wind energy is $26 per megawatt-hour (MWh) down from $37 per MWh in 2014. In comparison, today’s gas-fired generation costs $28 per megawatt-hour.
While some climate scientists are satisfied with the plan, others believe there are areas that need more attention. Imperial College Director of Research Dr. Joeri Rogeli celebrates the plan’s balanced transition away from fossil fuels, but expresses concern about the lack of detail on how that transition will take place. Director of Boston University’s Institute for Sustainable Energy Peter Fox-Penner thinks additional work is needed in the area of infrastructure planning—specifically to deliver clean fuels to the entire energy network. And Syracuse Associate Geology Professor Dr Farhana Sultana calls for better engagement with climate migrants in the climate plan, as she believes the United State’s contributions to climate change have left the country with a responsibility to provide aid.
All three of the climate experts lauded Biden’s climate plan, describing it as a bold approach to climate change mitigation that would only be made better with the inclusion of additional mitigation strategies. The President’s administration needs to move quickly to achieve their carbon reduction goals, and employing more strategies will help to diversify the path to carbon neutrality.
