Unlike Donald Trump, the next president of the United States has an environmental agenda. And it’s a pretty exciting one.
He has not yet been officially elected, but at the time of going to press, Joe Biden already has the support of 290 of the 270 electors needed to ensure his accession to the White House.
All that remains is the formality of the transfer of power in 2021, and the vote of the electors in mid-December, for him to become, without contest, the 46th President of the United States.
Carbon Market
Is this good news for the environment? Good question, thank you for asking. In his long parliamentary life (he was first elected in 1973!) Joseph Robinette Biden has not shown much interest in green issues. Except that he was one of the few senators to vote in favor of the creation of an American system for trading greenhouse gas emissions, the famous carbon market. But without success.
Back to Paris
In these months of relentless campaigning against Trump, the global warming denier, the Democratic challenger has discovered a green streak. And he has not hesitated to defend a program that is anything but dishonorable. First promise: if elected, Joe is committed to bringing the United States back into the Paris climate agreement. Which doesn’t oblige him to do much other than produce a slightly improved climate policy every 5 years.
Carbon Neutral
Is it still useful? Here again, a good question. In recent weeks, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan and South Korea have announced their intention to aim for carbon neutrality by 2050. China will follow suit, albeit 10 years late. Carbon neutrality by 2050 suits Biden perfectly. In fact, the president-elect is proposing that by that date, American energy production should be totally clean. This means building a lot of nuclear, solar and wind power plants between now and then. In 2019, green energies produced just 11% of the primary energy consumed by Uncle Sam.
Green New Deal
The big deal for Donald Trump’s announced successor will be the launch of his post-Covid stimulus plan. Endowed with $1,700 to $2,000 billion (depending on the version) in federal funds, this Green New Deal hopes to attract three times as much private investment to renovate buildings (to make them more energy-efficient), modernize electricity grids, produce more renewable energies and develop the electric car market.
Corn belt
To power the combustion engines that will continue to power trucks, boats and planes, Barack Obama’s former vice-president intends to double the production of agrofuels, to the great benefit of American corn growers. To accelerate the Hyperpower’s energy transition, Washington will create an energy and climate technology development agency, akin to Darpa, which designs the weapons of the future for the Pentagon.
Nuke is good
His roadmap is already written: research should focus on energy storage systems (useful if we want to develop intermittent energies such as wind and solar power), small nuclear reactors, carbon-neutral buildings, the production of low-carbon materials or refrigerants that don’t warm the climate.
In a debate with the president-in-office, Joe Biden also promised to ban oil companies from federal lands and reduce subsidies for hydrocarbon production. Curiously, this did not penalize him in the states that produce the most shale oil.
