What Joe Biden's Win Means for Climate Change

In the perpetual game of red versus blue, the 2020 elections have been filled with stress and anxiety given the divided nature of the United States. The announcement of President-Elect Joe Biden has brought a temporary sigh of relief for the future of American democracy as well as the environment. For many of our generation, Biden's climate change agenda provides a sense of  simultaneous fear and hope.

In 2017, President Donald Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement in which 195 countries around the world created promises that would limit global warming below 2℃ and tackle issues that derive from climate change. On several occasions, Biden has announced that his first climate initiative would consist of rejoining the international treaty. Due to the Paris Agreement’s nationally determined contributions, the U.S. would be allowed to determine their own goals and contribute through funds that are used for research. In the past, the U.S had stated that they would reduce its emissions by 25% by 2025. Other countries with large emissions like China, Europe, and Japan have also created their goals to reach net zero emissions in the decades to come. The U.S re-entering the Paris Agreement gives Americans and the world a sense of relief that the U.S. can now be held accountable for their actions in the fight to keep global warming below 2℃. Regardless of what happened in the past, it once again unites every country in the fight against climate change. 

Biden’s climate plan also involves a hefty investment of nearly $2 trillion in clean energy to make the US carbon neutral by 2050. He will create regulations and incentives that will hold fossil fuel companies, and end the leasing on public land. With fossil fuels like carbon and natural gas making up ⅔ of the U.S’s electricity, it is important to emphasize the amount of emissions these forms of electricity create. The emissions from coal creates air pollution that not only makes the atmosphere warmer, but also pollutes the atmosphere of the people living nearby. Nearby communities pay the price by inhaling the air filled with smog that leads to respiratory illnesses like asthma. The acquiring of natural gas also has a negative effect on the water of those nearby communities due to leaks in the structure. When the Trump administration lowered the standards of fossil fuel companies in the Corporate Average Fuel Economy it gave companies leeway to build automobiles that depended on fossil fuels to run releasing a large amount of greenhouse emissions. Biden hopes to re-establish the higher standards for fossil fuel companies and automobile companies to lower the greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and transportation. There is a hope that the public will begin to rely on more public transportation and have more hybrid and electric cars. These changes would undo Trump’s executive orders that previously put the U.S. behind in their goal to reach a net zero emissions, and push the U.S. as a developed country to take responsibility for the amount of emissions they create.

Biden’s plan emphasizes environmental justice and it is no surprise that low-income communities will not benefit from these changes in the same way that middle-class communities do. Biden states that he will invest 40% of the plan’s funds to disadvantaged communities. His plan states the quantitative factors and lacks the qualitative factors that play an important role in the fight for environmental justice. However, Biden is not the first president to make the promise of equality only to give up. Biden’s plan lacks an emphasis on immigrants and women of color who are a minority within a minority. Immigrants are more likely to take jobs that other people would not, exposing their health to toxic chemicals and unhealthy conditions. These are the people who work in fossil fuel plants and will be the first to lose their job in these changes. He has to make them a priority regardless of their immigration status. These are also the people who work in agriculture, working through fires in Central California and severe weather changes. The policies he creates have to be inclusive of all people, especially those who do not have citizenship because they are a valuable part of the minorities in America. 

Indigenous communities inhabit parts of the world’s biodiversity that other communities don’t, meaning that they will be the first to see the impact of climate change due to forest fires, storms, and loss of biodiversity. They will lose their homes in floods and it is not enough for Biden to state that he will provide sustainable and affordable communities. Their traditions and customs allow for them to live in a sustainable way, so they should not be the ones who feel the repercussions of climate change. Indigenous communities need not only protection against climate change, but inclusion. Indigenous communities are less likely to have the voices heard versus other minority groups, yet they have knowledge that could teach people to protect the Earth they live in. The majority group of America is the cause for the masses of greenhouse emissions and they need to be held accountable, but they also need to know when to make the voices of minorities heard because they are the first to be impacted. 

Fracking is where Biden needs to continue his climate activism energy. His plan emphasizes on the cut down of carbon emissions and stricter regulations that would make fossil fuel companies take responsibility for the harm they cause on their surrounding environment, yet lacks to put those regulations on fracking and its impacts. In an act of fan service to the swing-state of Pennsylvania, the Biden-Harris ticket repeatedly reassured voters that a ban on fracking would remain off the climate policy menu. His victory in the fracking state could encourage Biden to step away from the fracking issue all together. Regardless of the Pennsylvania economy, fracking has been linked to several environmental justice issues particularly air and ground water pollution. About 4% of methane escapes from the fracking wells into the atmosphere which is equivalent to the carbon emissions of 1 to 3 million cars.

It is understandable that a step to reduce carbon emissions and focus on the use of clean energy is a step in the right direction to the U.S’s net zero emission goal by 2050, but if fracking does not have the equivalent amount of restrictions, then the policies will not be enough to reach that goal. It becomes a larger issue knowing that fracking alos causes water contaminations, oil spills, and earthquakes. Fracking is 25 times more potent in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, so it isn’t enough to steer away from fracking because it is a large sum of Pennsylanvia’s economy. There will be new jobs created with the transition to a cleaner energy grid, so that is an alternative for Pennsylanvia to grow their economy. 

This plan gives hope to the future of climate change in the U.S. compared to more recent years, but there are also certain factors that stop this plan from occurring. The restrictions and changes on transportation, fossil fuel companies, and environmental justice are still a step in the right direction, even if it is lenient on fracking. However, with the Georgia seat in the Senate open, Republicans have the opportunity to take the majority of the seats. Republicans have shown that there is a sense of priority for pride rather than the issues that would benefit the American people. Keeping this in mind, Biden’s executive orders could easily be turned down again and again. Biden has to try to make these executive orders in four years. With America’s rocky politics, if he does not serve a second term the next successor could easily overturn his regulations and executive orders. The Obama Administration showed things can get done in a single term dedicated to climate change action, but it also showed that those changes can be easily reversed. 

In a fight against climate change, time is of the essence and the Biden Administration’s climate plan allows for there to be a start in what should have been continued four years ago. However, it isn’t enough to undo Trump’s executive orders. Biden’s climate plan is appealing because it brings the spotlight to environmental justice and cleaner energy, but it is necessary to not only say that they will be protected, but that their voices will be heard.