will in turn compel greater action from corporations, whose pledges have been voluntary. Morton believes guidance at the federal level in the U.S. Tracking from the World Resources Institute shows that 130 countries representing about 45 percent of global emissions have signaled intentions to increase the level of ambition in their new targets. Whether countries submit targets that are more ambitious in scope will set the tone for the next stage of Paris Agreement implementation. Nations that are still working under the Paris Agreement are required to submit new, strengthened 2030 targets before the end of this year. “They think it’s not just the right thing to do but a prudent economic and financial thing to do.” “Countries now see it as in their political and economic self-interest to commit themselves to…profound decarbonization,” said Morton. government officials that spoke to Greentech Media for this story. Those are significant steps, albeit ones that still require more details to be hashed out and which must proceed along a shorter timeline to avert the worst climate outcomes, according to several of the former U.S. In recent months, China and Japan have announced long-range goals to reach net-zero carbon emissions. Morton, a partner at climate investment firm Pollination Group who served as White House senior director for energy and climate change under President Obama. Some of those efforts have helped negate fears that the United States leaving the agreement would cause international “backsliding,” said John E. climate campaigns at World Wildlife Fund and who also helped negotiate the Paris Agreement while at the State Department. “Emissions in the United States in multiple sectors are decreasing as a result of the work of these actors, which is not something I would have predicted when President Trump was elected,” said Elan Strait, currently director of U.S. is far from reaching its Paris commitment - called a 'nationally determined contribution' - to cut emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, those groups say that the subnational commitments now in place could build to a reduction of 37 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. actors still committed to the Paris Agreement encompass nearly 70 percent of the country’s GDP and produce more than half its emissions. Groups such as We Are Still In and America’s Pledge, formed by governors, colleges, cities and other stakeholders, sought to demonstrate to the international community that even as the federal government loosened environmental regulations, businesses and subnational governments were working to uphold them. Analyses from those groups show that U.S. In the U.S., cities, states and corporations have filled in some of the gaps left by the Trump administration’s antagonism toward environmental regulation. Much has changed in the global climate and energy policy landscape since many countries signed the Paris Agreement in 2016, and since the Trump administration vowed to pull out of it. and the Paris Agreement, four years later Encouraging further decarbonization of the power sector will play a pivotal role. climate ambition, not only by significantly ratcheting up the nation’s targets but also by enacting policies that will drive emissions cuts. That means the Biden administration will need to rebuild international trust in U.S. lives up to 'what would be expected from a world leader on the issue.” is back in, he said, the question then becomes how the U.S. spends entirely outside of the parameters agreement amount to a “speed bump,” said Alden Meyer, former director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has attended U.N. With Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris soon to be in charge, the few months the U.S. signed the agreement, the Trump administration has stepped away from international climate negotiations while loosening domestic environmental rules. will again become a party to the accord just months after the Trump administration’s bid to leave it became final on November 4. Under the agreement’s rules, that means the U.S. President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris Agreement, an international climate accord adopted in December 2015, on his first day in office.

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