US Remains Committed to Meeting CO2 Emissions Reduction Goals, Despite Supreme Court Setback

They don’t lose hope. The United States remains determined to achieve its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, despite the Supreme Court’s decision which severely limits the powers of the federal state in the fight against global warming, assured AFP the Biden administration’s climate envoy, John Kerry, Friday, July 1.

“We are determined to achieve our goals. We can achieve them”assured the American official about these official commitments. “Of course it would help us if we had a majority on the Supreme Court of the United States that really understood the seriousness of the situation and would be better able to try to help rather than somehow another, to put a spoke in the wheels”added the diplomat.

The day before, the highest US court had removed the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate emissions from the coal sector. She found, through Judge John Roberts, that“it is implausible that Congress gave the EPA the authority to pass such a measure”. “I am convinced — and our lawyers are taking a closer look — that this decision leaves enough leeway to do a lot of things that we need to do” against climate change,” John Kerry told AFP.

“Nobody, neither bank nor private lender, is going to finance a new coal plant in the United States.”

John Kerry, United States Presidential Special Envoy for the Climate

at AFP

President Joe Biden brought the United States back into the Paris climate accord, which his predecessor Donald Trump left. He also announced that the United States would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent by 2030, compared to 2005.