Covering a third of the planet s land surface, forests are massive carbon sinks, absorbing and storing carbon dioxide and keeping it out of the atmosphere where it would contribute to global warming. Only the world s oceans store more carbon. Keeping forests intact has long been considered essential.
Friday, April 23, 2021
On April 22 – Earth Day – President Biden announced that the United States would commit to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 to 50% of the country’s 2005 emissions. View the White House’s fact sheet here. As a formal matter, the President was announcing the United States’ Nationally Determined Contribution, the voluntary emission reduction under the Paris Agreement.
What does that mean for the environmental regulatory issues that businesses and others will face going forward?
Much has been and will be written about this announcement and the associated statements. This post is not a comprehensive review. Instead, I want to observe that this new announcement tracks much of what we have heard from the Administration in the past three months. Since the Second Bush Administration, the Clean Air Act has provided the backbone for federal regulatory efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That does not appear to be the way the Bide
April 6, 2021
50 Organizations Call on President Biden to Protect Tongass National Forest and Carbon-rich Forests Under U.S. Climate Commitments Biden administration expected to release international climate commitments ahead of Earth Day summit on April 22
Contacts Juneau, AK (Tlingit / Áak’w Ḵwáan lands)
50 organizations representing national and local conservation groups, commercial fishing interests, and the outdoor recreation industry, submitted a letter last week to the Biden administration calling for carbon-dense forests, including the Tongass National Forest in Alaska, to be specifically protected in the United States’ Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), a plan for climate action that is integral to the international Paris climate agreement. The NDC, which is currently being drafted by Biden’s climate team, will be presented to the United Nations later this year.