Category Archives: Climate Change

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change

FACT SHEET: President Catalyzes Global Climate Action through the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate

President Joe Biden  highlighted how the United States is addressing these four priority areas at home through measures including the Inflation Reduction Act – the largest U.S. investment ever in reducing U.S. emissions, accelerating the clean energy economy, and protecting communities from climate impacts – and how these efforts are creating good-paying jobs and building a more secure and sustainable clean energy economy. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.

Ahead of Earth Day 2023, President Biden convened leaders of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) for the fourth time since taking office to galvanize efforts needed to tackle the climate crisis and keep a 1.5°C limit on warming within reach. The White House provided this fact sheet highlighting steps the United States is taking to meet its emissions goals and to support developing countries:

President Joe Biden highlighted new steps the United States is taking to meet its ambitious 1.5°C-aligned goal of reducing emissions 50-52 percent in 2030.  The President also announced significant new steps the United States is taking to support developing countries in taking stronger climate action – including providing $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund and requesting $500 million for the Amazon Fund and related activities – and invite other countries to join the United States and others in fully leveraging the multilateral development banks to better address global challenges, like climate change.

The President was joined by other leaders in new efforts aimed at accelerating progress in four key areas necessary for keeping a 1.5°C limit on warming within reach, specifically:

  • Decarbonizing energy:  Announcing steps to drive down emissions in the power and transportation sectors, including scaling up of clean energy, setting ambitious 2030 zero-emission vehicle goals, and decarbonizing international shipping.
     
  • Ending deforestation of the Amazon and other critical forests:  Working through the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership to mobilize public, private, and philanthropic support.
     
  • Tackling potent, non-CO2 climate pollutants:  Launching a Methane Finance Sprint to cut methane emissions and accelerating hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) phasedown under the Kigali Amendment.
     
  • Advancing carbon management:  Partnering with countries to accelerate carbon capture, removal, use, and storage technologies through a COP 28 Carbon Management Challenge to deal with emissions that can’t otherwise be avoided.

To help frame the MEF discussion, leaders were briefed by Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), on a new report  to the MEF highlighting why action in these areas between now and 2030 is critical to preserve credible pathways to limit warming to 1.5 °C by 2100.

MEF economies account for roughly 80 percent of global GDP and global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.  Since being reconvened by President Biden in April 2021, the MEF has helped galvanize the global climate response, contributing to the progress achieved at the United Nations Climate Conferences in Glasgow (COP 26) and Sharm El-Sheikh (COP 27). 

However, the most recent findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underscore more urgently than ever that the window for decisive action to avert the gravest consequences of climate change is quickly narrowing. 

The President  highlighted how the United States is addressing these four priority areas at home through measures including the Inflation Reduction Act – the largest U.S. investment ever in reducing U.S. emissions, accelerating the clean energy economy, and protecting communities from climate impacts – and how these efforts are creating good-paying jobs and building a more secure and sustainable clean energy economy.

In addition to partnering on new joint efforts, leaders were expected to announce other new steps their countries are taking to fulfill their nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement.  The President will encourage those countries whose 2030 Paris targets are not yet aligned with keeping 1.5 °C within reach to strengthen their targets by COP 28 this November in Dubai.

Strengthening Support for Climate Action in Developing Countries

Providing $1 Billion to the Green Climate Fund

In 2021, President Biden pledged to work with Congress to quadruple U.S. climate support for developing countries to more than $11 billion a year by 2024.  As part of this broader effort, today, the President will announce that the United States is providing $1 billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF), bringing total U.S. contributions to the GCF to $2 billion.

Since 2015, the GCF has approved over $12 billion for projects across more than 125 developing countries to accelerate clean energy transitions, build resilience in the most vulnerable countries, and catalyze private investment.  These projects are expected to reduce 2.5 billion tons of emissions and increase the resilience of over 900 million people.  The GCF has a specific mandate to support countries particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, including least developed countries, small island developing states, and African nations.

Mobilizing the Multilateral Development Banks to Usher in a New Era of Clean Growth

Following important steps taken last week by the World Bank, President Biden will encourage leaders to support a strengthened effort this year to fully leverage the capacity of the multilateral development banks (MDBs) to address global challenges, including climate change, while accelerating progress on reducing poverty and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.  The United States is working with the MDBs to evolve their visions, incentive structures, operational approaches, and financial capacity to better meet pressing global challenges.

Decarbonizing Energy

Succeeding in keeping the 1.5 °C goal within reach will require accelerating progress in key energy-related sectors, such as electric power and transportation.

Putting the Power Sector on a Path to Net Zero Emissions

Limiting warming to 1.5°C will require steep and immediate reductions in energy sector CO2 emissions, including an accelerated scale up of clean energy technologies to achieve net zero emissions by mid-century. 

President Biden has set an ambitious U.S. goal of achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.  As a result of the historic investments in the Inflation Reduction Act and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as well as other actions the Administration is taking, the United States is on a clear path to achieve this goal, while reducing costs for consumers, lowering harmful pollutants, mitigating climate change, and creating new economic opportunities.  Today, the U.S. released a new National Innovation Pathway Report, highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration’s all-hands-on-deck strategy for accelerating key clean energy technology innovations.  The Administration is advancing a three-pronged approach that prioritizes innovation, demonstration, and deployment to scale the technologies the United States needs to achieve its goals of a carbon pollution-free electricity sector by no later than 2035 and a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.

To accelerate global progress, President Biden will invite leaders to announce steps they are taking to put their energy sectors on a path aligned with the 1.5 °C goal.

Reducing Emissions and Fossil Fuel Use by Accelerating Zero-Emission Vehicle Deployment

The transportation sector is a large and fast-growing source of greenhouse gases globally.  Rapidly scaling up production and use of zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) will slash emissions, reduce oil dependence, strengthen energy security, protect economies from oil price volatility, and accelerate the phaseout of unabated fossil fuels.  Faster ZEV deployment will also improve public health by reducing emissions of conventional pollutants.  Thanks to technology innovations, the historic investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, and additional investments made by automakers and throughout the battery supply chain, the U.S. transportation sector is rapidly shifting towards zero emission vehicles.

The Inflation Reduction Act contains new and expanded tax credits for drivers to purchase new clean vehicles, as well as the first-ever tax credits for purchasing used clean vehicles.  These tax provisions will help make clean vehicles more accessible and affordable for American families while incentivizing automakers to build secure, reliable, trusted supply chains for the critical minerals and batteries contained in those vehicles.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed new vehicle emissions standards that would build on this progress and accelerate the ongoing transition to a clean vehicle future.  The EPA projects that, under the proposed standards, electric vehicles could account for 67% of new light-duty vehicle (LDV) sales and 46% of new medium-duty vehicle sales in model year 2032.  This would avoid nearly 10 billion tons of CO2 emissions through 2055 (equivalent to nearly twice the total U.S. CO2 emissions in 2022), save the average consumer $12,000 over the lifetime of a light-duty vehicle, reduce oil imports by approximately 20 billion barrels, and improve air quality, especially in communities that have borne the burden of polluted air. 

To accelerate this transition globally, President Biden will invite leaders to join the United States in a collective goal aiming to ensure that by 2030 over 50 percent of LDVs and at least 30 percent of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles (MHDVs) sold globally will be zero-emissions vehicles (e.g., battery electric, fuel cell electric, and plug-in hybrid vehicles).  Countries joining in the collective goal will set their own national 2030 LDV and MHDV market share goals by COP 28.

Decarbonizing International Shipping

Greenhouse gas emissions from the shipping sector are significant, increasing, and incompatible with limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 °C.  If shipping were a “country,” it would be among the top ten largest emitters.  As part of the Green Shipping Challenge highlighted at last year’s MEF leaders meeting, countries, ports, and companies offered more than 40 concrete announcements at COP 27 on the steps they are taking this decade to help put the shipping sector on a path to align with the 1.5 °C goal.

In July, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) will adopt a Revised IMO Greenhouse Gas Strategy to accelerate efforts to decarbonize shipping.  Today, President Biden will ask leaders to join the United States in supporting the IMO’s adoption of 1.5 °C-aligned goals for the sector, including a goal of zero emissions from international shipping no later than 2050.

Ending Deforestation of the Amazon and Other Critical Forests

Ending forest loss, particularly in the tropics, is vital for limiting warming to 1.5 °C.  The Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use calls for halting and reversing forest loss and land degradation by 2030.  The United States is taking decisive action to prevent deforestation at home and abroad, as called for in the President’s Executive Order on “Strengthening the Nation’s Forests, Communities, and Local Economies.”

Contributing to Brazil’s Amazon Fund 

The President announced he was requesting $500 million over five years for the Amazon Fund and related activities in the context of Brazil’s renewed commitment to end deforestation by 2030. The President also will call on other leaders to pledge support to the Amazon Fund.

The U.S. Development Finance Corporation also announced that it is working on a $50 million debt investment in BTG Pactual’s Restoration Strategy, which would help mobilize $1 billion to support the restoration of nearly 300,000 hectares of degraded lands in Brazil, Uruguay, and Chile.  Conservation International will serve as the impact advisor on the pathbreaking project, which will set aside half the restored lands for permanent protection, with the other half to be managed for sustainable forestry, generating an estimated 35 million tonnes of carbon sequestration over 15 years.

Marshalling Global Action to Stop Deforestation

The Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership (FCLP), which was launched at COP 27 and is co-led by the United States, aims to mobilize stronger action to end deforestation and to strengthen support from donor governments, philanthropy, the private sector, and multilateral finance institutions. To help protect other critical forest basins around the globe, President Biden will call on other leaders to join the United States in committing to work through the FCLP this year to coordinate and catalyze investment and support by COP 28 to advance implementation of ambitious forest, climate, and nature actions in forest countries.

To further advance the President’s commitments on combatting international deforestation associated with agriculture commodity production and the reduction of global deforestation, the U.S. government is working to identify potential approaches to address globally traded commodities associated with international deforestation as well as identify potential action to reduce global deforestation, as called for in the President’s Executive Order.

Leading at Home by Strengthening America’s Forests

America’s forests play a key role in achieving our domestic climate goals, absorbing carbon dioxide equivalent to more than 10% of U.S. annual greenhouse gas emissions.  To advance the President’s commitment to strengthening America’s forests, today the U.S. is announcing critical new steps to better manage our domestic forests for climate resilience, following the completion of a first-ever nationwide inventory of old and mature forests.
 
Tackling Potent Non-CO2 Climate Pollutants

In addition to cutting CO2, rapid reductions of other GHG emissions are essential to keep 1.5 °C within reach.  Methane and other non-CO2 GHGs are potent climate pollutants with short atmospheric lifetimes.  Rapidly reducing them would have an outsized impact on near-term warming.

Accelerating Methane Action to Reduce Global Warming by at least 0.2 degrees Celsius by 2050

Since being introduced by the United States and the European Union at the MEF leaders meeting in September 2021, 150 countries have now joined the Global Methane Pledge, with the goal of cutting anthropogenic methane emissions at least 30 percent by 2030.  More than 50 countries have developed, or are developing, national methane action plans, and many new projects are underway to drive methane reductions in the key sectors of fossil energy, waste, and agriculture and food.

To support and accelerate these efforts, President Biden will invite other countries to join the United States in a new Methane Finance Sprint with the aim of scaling up methane finance, including by raising at least $200 million in new public and philanthropic donor support for developing countries by COP 28.  Philanthropies have committed to dedicate $100 million in new funding through the Global Methane Hub towards the $200 million goal.  To complement these efforts, the private sector and other financial institutions will also be invited to join this effort.  The President also will invite leaders to report on steps their countries are taking to strengthen their national methane reduction efforts.

Expediting the Phasedown of Super-Polluting HFCs to Avoid up to Half a degree Celsius of Warming by 2100

Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), widely used in refrigeration and air-conditioning, are thousands of times more powerful as greenhouse gases than CO2.  In October, with bipartisan Senate support, the United States ratified the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which aims to phase down global production and consumption of HFCs.  Other countries participating in today’s MEF meeting that have ratified Kigali over the past year include Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Italy, and the Republic of Korea.

Full implementation of the Kigali Amendment could avoid up to half a degree of warming by 2100.  According to the U.N. Environment Programme, fully seizing opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of cooling appliances alongside HFC phasedown could as much as double the Kigali Amendment’s climate benefits.

To promote rapid implementation of the Kigali Amendment, President Biden will call on other countries to ratify the amendment as soon as possible, consider expedited timelines for their phasedown of HFCs, and pledge support to use the Montreal Protocol Multilateral Fund to incentivize early action on HFCs and maximize parallel cooling efficiency improvements.

Accelerating Carbon Capture and Removal Technologies

In addition to full-scale mitigation efforts – including accelerated deployment of clean energy, ending deforestation, and cutting non-CO2 emissions – keeping a 1.5 °C warming limit within reach will require responsible deployment of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies.  CCUS has a critical role to play in decarbonizing the global economy, particularly the industrial sector, where process emissions are more difficult to address.  Combating climate change will also require addressing legacy emissions and removing CO2 from the ambient air, through CDR.  The IEA estimates that roughly 1.2 Gt of CCUS and CDR will be needed by 2030 to limit warming to 1.5°C.  If global temperature rise exceeds 1.5°C, the use of CDR to remove CO2 from the atmosphere will be necessary to return global temperatures to 1.5 °C by the end of the century. 

Dealing with Emissions that Can’t Otherwise be Avoided

To accelerate these critical technologies, the Inflation Reduction Act provides tax credits of $85 per tonne of CO2 captured and stored and $180 for every tonne of CO2 removed through direct air capture and permanently stored.  In addition, President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law included over $12 billion in investments in next-generation carbon capture, direct air capture, integrated CCUS demonstrations, and industrial emissions reduction demonstration projects, as well as CO2 transport and storage infrastructure.

To build on these efforts, the President will invite other countries to join the Carbon Management Challenge, with the aim of unveiling at COP 28 a suite of concrete announcements and goals that will accelerate CCUS and CDR internationally.

Throughout Earth Week, President Biden, Vice President Harris and other Cabinet-level officials held events and announcing commitments focused on how the President’s Investing in America agenda is powering an American manufacturing and clean energy boom, lowering prices, creating good-paying jobs in clean energy industries, meeting our climate goals, and advancing environmental justice and conservation.

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Earth Day, Environment, Environmental Protection

FACT SHEET: Biden Signs Executive Order to Revitalize Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All

Pittsburgh’s dirty coal legacy. On the day before Earth Day 2023, standing beside environmental justice leaders, climate advocates and community leaders in the Rose Garden, President Biden  announced bold new actions to protect the health and environment of communities across America, including a new executive order making environmental justice the mission of every single executive agency. The executive order will direct agencies to address gaps in science and data to better understand and prevent the cumulative impacts of pollution on people’s health. It will create a new Office of Environmental Justice in the White House to coordinate all environmental justice efforts across the federal government. And it will require agencies to notify nearby communities in the event of a release of toxic substances from a federal facility. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com
 

President Biden has done more than any prior president to tackle the climate crisis.

On the day before Earth Day 2023, standing beside environmental justice leaders, climate advocates and community leaders in the Rose Garden, President Biden announced bold new actions to protect the health and environment of communities across America, including a new executive order making environmental justice the mission of every single executive agency. The executive order will direct agencies to address gaps in science and data to better understand and prevent the cumulative impacts of pollution on people’s health. It will create a new Office of Environmental Justice in the White House to coordinate all environmental justice efforts across the federal government. And it will require agencies to notify nearby communities in the event of a release of toxic substances from a federal facility.

Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to Florida to announce new investments as part of the President’s Investing in America agenda to strengthen coastal resilience to climate change impacts and extreme storms – this after record flooding in Fort Lauderdale.

The announcements come on the heels of a new report showing that the private sector has announced and advanced more than 190 clean energy projects nationwide since the President signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, totaling more than $242 billion in investments.

The President also is highlighting how his historic environmental justice and climate agenda stands in stark contrast to the dangerous vision Speaker McCarthy and his extreme caucus have for our planet, our economy, and public health:

  • While we’re lowering costs for American families through clean energy tax credits, extreme MAGA Republicans are safeguarding handouts for Big Oil companies.
  • While we’re creating thousands of clean energy jobs in communities across America, extreme MAGA Republicans are fighting to send those jobs back to China.
  • While we’re cleaning up toxic pollution at Superfund sites and brownfields, extreme MAGA Republicans are fighting to make it easier for oil and gas companies to pollute the air we breathe.
  • While we’re replacing lead pipes so all Americans have clean water to drink, extreme MAGA Republicans want to make it easier for refineries to use toxic chemicals like hydrofluoric acid, which causes severe burns, damages people’s eyes, and literally melts bones.
  • While we’re plugging millions of orphaned wells that emit methane and other dangerous gases, extreme MAGA Republicans would allow mining and energy companies to store hazardous waste without a permit.

Speaker McCarthy and his extreme caucus’ proposals, including H.R. 1, would be a climate and health disaster that President Biden won’t allow on his watch.

As House Republicans move to extort a repeal of President Joe Biden’s historic investment in climate action by holding out raising the debt limit which would crash the global economy and cause massive rise in interest rates, Biden has revitalized a national commitment to environmental justice for all. The White House provided this fact sheet: –Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

President Biden and Vice President Harris believe that every person has a right to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and live in a healthy community – now and into the future. During his first week in office, President Biden launched the most ambitious environmental justice agenda in our nation’s history. To continue delivering on that vision, today the President will sign an executive order further embedding environmental justice into the work of federal agencies to achieve real, measurable progress that communities can count on.
 
The Executive Order is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-of-government effort to confront longstanding environmental injustices and inequities. For far too long, communities across our country have faced persistent environmental injustice through toxic pollution, underinvestment in infrastructure and critical services, and other disproportionate environmental harms often due to a legacy of racial discrimination including redlining. These communities with environmental justice concerns face even greater burdens due to climate change.
 
With this action, the President is working to ensure that all people – regardless of race, background, income, ability, Tribal affiliation, or zip code – can benefit from the vital safeguards enshrined in our nation’s foundational environmental and civil rights laws. That means cleaner air and water, reduced risk for asthma, cancer, and other health burdens, and better access to green space, safe and affordable housing, and clean transportation.
 
For President Biden, protecting our planet starts with ensuring everyone lives in a safe and healthy environment. Throughout Earth Week, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and other Cabinet-level officials are holding events and announcing commitments focused on how the President’s Investing in America agenda is creating good-paying clean energy jobs, lowering costs, meeting our climate goals, advancing environmental justice and conservation, and strengthening communities that for too long were left behind or left out.
 
The new Executive Order, Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All, will:

  • Deepen the Biden-Harris Administration’s whole-of-government commitment to environmental justice. The new Executive Order makes clear that the pursuit of environmental justice is a duty of all executive branch agencies and should be incorporated into their missions. It also affirms that environmental justice is central to the implementation of our bedrock civil rights and environmental laws.
     
  • Better protect overburdened communities from pollution and environmental harms. The Executive Order directs agencies to consider measures to address and prevent disproportionate and adverse environmental and health impacts on communities, including the cumulative impacts of pollution and other burdens like climate change. Additionally, it requires agencies to notify nearby communities in the event of a release of toxic substances from a federal facility, and to hold a public meeting to share information on resulting health risks and necessary precautions.
     
  • Strengthen engagement with communities and mobilize federal agencies to confront existing and legacy barriers and injustices. Communities with environmental justice concerns have long experienced exclusion and other significant barriers to having a voice in federal decision-making. The Executive Order recognizes this reality and that racism is a fundamental driver of environmental injustice. It directs agencies to actively facilitate meaningful public participation and just treatment of all people in agency decision-making. The Executive Order also underscores the vital importance of Tribal consultation and coordination, including to strengthen nation-to-nation relationships on issues involving environmental justice.
     
  • Promote the latest science, data, and research, including on cumulative impacts. The Executive Order directs agencies to identify and address gaps in science, data, and research related to environmental justice, to advance the analysis of cumulative impacts, and to make information on environmental and health concerns more publicly accessible to communities. To address the need for a coordinated strategy for identifying and filling environmental justice data and research gaps, the Executive Order establishes a new Environmental Justice Subcommittee within the National Science and Technology Council, led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy.
     
  • Expand interagency coordination and launch a new Office of Environmental Justice within the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Building on Executive Order 14008, the Executive Order adds agencies to the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council to further a whole-of-government strategy to address current and historic environmental injustice. The Executive Order also establishes the White House Office of Environmental Justice, led by the Federal Chief Environmental Justice Officer, and tasks it with coordinating the implementation of environmental justice policy across the federal government, ensuring that federal efforts can evolve alongside our understanding of environmental justice.
     
  • Increase accountability and transparency in federal environmental justice policy. The Executive Order charges federal agencies with conducting new assessments of their environmental justice efforts and developing, implementing, and periodically updating an environmental justice strategic plan. These Environmental Justice Strategic Plans and Assessments will be submitted to the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) and made public on a regular basis, including through the Environmental Justice Scorecard, a new government-wide assessment of federal agencies’ efforts to advance environmental justice.
     
  • Honor and build on the foundation of ongoing environmental justice work. Under the Executive Order, agencies will continue their efforts to advance environmental justice in ways that complement and deepen prior work. The Executive Order uses the term “disproportionate and adverse” as a simpler, modernized version of the phrase “disproportionately high and adverse” used in Executive Order 12898. Those phrases have the same meaning, but removing the word “high” eliminates potential misunderstanding that agencies should only be considering large disproportionate effects.

This action follows through on President Biden’s promise to modernize and improve how the federal government confronts environmental injustice to address the needs of present and future generations – a promise he made following meaningful engagement with communities with environmental justice concerns and solidified in Executive Order 14008, Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad. The Executive Order reflects the values, goals, and recommendations of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), an expert body of leaders, researchers, practitioners, and community members. In line with the WHEJAC’s recommendations, the Executive Order outlines an ambitious approach to environmental justice that is informed by scientific research, high-quality data, and meaningful engagement with communities. It also reaffirms that the federal government must continue to be transparent and accountable for its actions.
 
The Executive Order builds on and supplements the foundational efforts of Executive Order 12898, signed by President Bill Clinton nearly 30 years ago. For the first time in our nation’s history, Executive Order 12898 recognized and sought to address what community members and leaders had been saying for decades: harmful pollution disproportionally impacts low-income communities and communities of color, among other vulnerable communities.
 
In addition to the Executive Order, today the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing other new steps to further the President’s historic commitment to environmental justice:

  • Publishing the first-ever Environmental Justice Scorecard. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB), CEQ, and the U.S. Digital Service are publishing Phase One of the Environmental Justice Scorecard, the first government-wide assessment of federal agencies’ efforts to advance environmental justice. The first version of the Scorecard establishes a baseline for tracking the federal government’s efforts through 24 agencies to secure environmental justice, including to advance the Justice40 Initiative. Over time, it will show how the Administration’s actions are making meaningful changes in communities. The Scorecard incorporates recommendations from the WHEJAC and feedback from the public, environmental justice stakeholders, and experts.
     
  • Launching the White House Campaign for Environmental Justice. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that people are seeing and experiencing the impacts of the President’s environmental justice agenda in their communities. To strengthen partnerships with communities that have been left behind for too long, the Administration is announcing the White House Campaign for Environmental Justice. The campaign, which is being kicked off today at the launch of the 21st Urban Waters Federal Partnership in Raleigh, North Carolina, will redouble the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to meet people where they are and better focus agency resources and attention on the needs of marginalized and overburdened communities.
     
  • Announcing new Justice40 covered programs. Through the Justice40 Initiative, the Biden-Harris Administration is reshaping hundreds of federal programs to ensure that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities. Today three additional agencies, the Department of Commerce, the National Science Foundation, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), announced their Justice40 covered programs. Now nearly 470 programs across nineteen federal agencies are covered under the President’s Justice40 Initiative.
     
  • Taking new steps to combat plastic pollution in communities. The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes that the plastic pollution crisis is an environmental justice issue, with disadvantaged communities in the U.S. and globally bearing social, economic, and public health burdens across the entire lifecycle of plastics. Today the Environmental Protection Agency is releasing a draft National Strategy on Preventing Plastic Pollution to combat the disparate impacts on communities affected by plastic from production to waste. The White House is also announcing a new Interagency Policy Committee (IPC) on Plastic Pollution and a Circular Economy. The IPC will coordinate federal efforts on plastic pollution, prioritizing public health, economic development, and equity to ensure that the benefits of acting on plastic pollution – including jobs, minimized exposure to harmful chemicals, and clean communities – are available to all.

Today’s announcements build on more than two years of progress under President Biden’s leadership to advance environmental justice. That progress includes:

For more on the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to advance environmental justice, visit https://www.whitehouse.gov/environmentaljustice/.

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Energy

FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Continues to Advance American Offshore Wind Opportunities

Two years of progress to catalyze a new clean energy industry, deliver for workers and communities, and protect biodiversity and ocean co-use. The White House provided this fact sheet:
 

Two years ago today, President Biden set a goal of deploying 30 gigawatts of offshore wind electricity generation by 2030—enough to power more than 10 million American homes with clean energy, while creating good-paying jobs in the United States across manufacturing, shipbuilding, port operations, construction, and other sectors. Since then, the Biden-Harris Administration’s transformative actions have jumpstarted the offshore wind industry across the country.
 
Today at the International Offshore Wind Partnering Forum in Baltimore, White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi outlined ten ways the Administration is making progress toward the 2030 goal, and is on a path to 110 gigawatts by 2050. Building on two years of decisive action, today the Administration is making new announcements on offshore wind cost reduction pathways, innovation strategies, and more. Last year alone, American offshore wind investments tripled, with an additional $10 billion that spans across the nation—from factories in the heartland to coastal communities along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico. Through the President’s Investing in America agenda, more progress is ahead in the development of stronger supply chains, upgraded infrastructure, and a growing clean energy economy.    

In addition to expanding economic opportunities for American workers and communities, offshore wind deployment will strengthen the nation’s energy security, make the power grid more reliable while lowering costs, and reduce dangerous climate pollution. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to delivering these benefits by advancing offshore wind development responsibly, in partnership with states, Tribes, coastal communities, and a wide range of stakeholders, with data-driven decisions to protect marine ecosystems and promote ocean co-use.
 
The Administration is supporting offshore wind through actions across the Departments of the Interior, Energy, Commerce, Transportation, and other federal agencies, including these ten key ways:

  1. Wind Energy Areas off Every Coast: The Department of the Interior (DOI) released a first-ever offshore wind leasing strategy, which includes holding up to seven offshore wind lease sales by 2025. This strategy provides two crucial ingredients for success: more certainty for industry, and transparency for stakeholders and ocean users. As part of this strategy, DOI’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) held historic offshore wind lease sales in the New York Bight, Carolina Long Bay, and northern and central California. In support of potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, Central Atlantic, Gulf of Maine, and offshore Oregon, BOEM is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on advanced spatial modeling to identify sites with the fewest conflicts and environmental impacts. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act provides opportunities for offshore wind lease sales off the coasts of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and the U.S. Territories.
     
  2. Investing in Workers and Communities: To advance renewable development of the outer continental shelf, DOI has introduced innovative provisions to support workforce training and union-built projects, domestic supply chain development, and community benefit agreements—including with Tribes and stakeholder groups. The Department of Energy (DOE) has charted a path to grow and train an American workforce to fill tens of thousands of jobs across the offshore wind industry. Efforts to help more communities share in offshore wind opportunities include Department of Commerce economic development grants; BOEM collaborations to deliver benefits to disadvantaged communities; and DOE funding for social science and capacity building to help communities more effectively participate in and capture benefits from offshore wind energy development.
     
  3. Made in America Supply Chains: The Administration is working to swiftly implement the Inflation Reduction Act’s historic suite of clean energy tax credits, including a manufacturing tax credit to support U.S. production of offshore wind components such as blades, nacelles, towers, and foundations. To support specialized shipbuilding, the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration (MARAD) designated offshore wind vessels as the first category to receive priority for review through the Federal Ship Financing Program. DOE is providing a range of financial support to the offshore wind supply chain, including through the Loan Programs Office and the Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, and working with industry and state partners to fill key gaps identified by the U.S. Offshore Wind Supply Chain Roadmap.
     
  4. Responsible and Efficient Permitting: DOI approved the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind projects, Vineyard Wind and South Fork Wind, both now under construction and being built by union labor. DOI and BOEM are on track to complete reviews of at least 16 project plans by 2025, representing more than 27 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy, and has proposed reforms to modernize this process and save $1 billion over 20 years. NOAA has advanced a range of environmental reviews, regulatory authorizations, and consultations to ensure protection of coastal and marine resources. Offshore wind is also a focus of the Administration’s Permitting Action Plan, bringing together federal agencies, White House offices, and the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council to promote efficient reviews guided by the best available science and Indigenous Knowledge.
     
  5. Transmission Planning and Buildout: To support the infrastructure needed to connect projects to the grid, DOE and BOEM have developed draft recommendations for an action plan on Atlantic offshore wind transmission, following a series of stakeholder convenings. A full action plan will follow, informed by the Administration’s Atlantic Offshore Wind Transmission Study. Similar efforts are underway along the Pacific, with DOE using Inflation Reduction Act funds for a West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Study. Both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act provide funding for grid upgrades that can support the offshore wind industry.
     
  6. Port Infrastructure Upgrades: With additional support from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, MARAD awarded grants last year through the Port Infrastructure Development Program (PIDP) that included nearly $100 million for port projects that will advance offshore wind deployment—from staging and assembly facilities for turbine components to docks for specialized vessels. For Fiscal Year 2023, more than $660 million in PIDP funding is available for port-related infrastructure projects, which can include support for a range of clean energy opportunities. DOE and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are advancing a West Coast Ports Strategy to support strategic planning for a collaborative port network to support installation, operation, and maintenance activities.  
     
  7. Floating Offshore Wind Targets: Deep-water areas that require floating platforms are home to two-thirds of America’s offshore wind energy potential, including along the West Coast and in the Gulf of Maine. To seize these opportunities, DOE launched the Floating Offshore Wind Shot aiming to reduce costs by more than 70% by 2035. DOE, DOI, and the Departments of Commerce and Transportation hosted an inaugural summit convening federal, state, Tribal, labor, industry, and community leaders to advance U.S. leadership, and DOE is advancing foundational science and prize competitions to accelerate breakthroughs. DOI set a goal to deploy 15 GW of floating offshore wind capacity by 2035—enough to power over five million American homes.
     
  8. Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership: President Biden brought together eleven East Coast governors to launch the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership, with states working alongside the Administration to maximize the benefits of offshore wind development for workers and communities. With offshore wind leasing advancing beyond the Atlantic, both California and Louisiana joined the Partnership to collaborate with federal agencies and other states on priorities including building an American supply chain and skilled workforce for offshore wind.
     
  9. Innovation and Research: DOE, in partnership with other agencies, is supporting next-generation offshore wind technologies (including for advanced turbine manufacturing and project operations and maintenance), advancing innovative approaches to environmental monitoring and ocean co-use, and more. These research, development, demonstration, and deployment efforts are a key part of DOE’s new Department-wide strategy to support the Administration’s offshore wind goals, building on last year’s Offshore Wind Energy Strategies Report outlining initiatives to accelerate cost-effective, reliable U.S. offshore wind deployment.
     
  10. Cross-Cutting Efforts for Responsible Deployment: The Biden-Harris Administration is taking a holistic approach to advancing offshore wind in concert with other priorities. These cross-cutting efforts include the nation’s first Ocean Climate Action Plan, detailing offshore wind actions that are part of broader efforts to ensure a robust and sustainable ocean economy; the NOAA-BOEM draft joint strategy to protect and promote recovery of North Atlantic right whales while responsibly developing offshore wind energy; and a NOAA-BOEM joint strategy to mitigate impacts of offshore wind on NOAA Fisheries surveys in collaboration with other ocean users, including fishermen’s local ecological knowledge and Indigenous Knowledge. 
Biden Administration, Climate Change, Energy, Jobs, Manufacturing

FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Announces New Private and Public Sector Investments for Affordable Electric Vehicles

President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda is unleashing a manufacturing and clean energy boom and accelerating the production of affordable electric vehicles. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

President Biden’s Investing in America Agenda is unleashing a manufacturing and clean energy boom and accelerating the production of affordable electric vehicles. The White House provided this fact sheet: 

As part of President Biden’s goal of having 50 percent of all new vehicle sales be electric by 2030, the White House is announcing the first set of public and private commitments to support America’s historic transition to electric vehicles (EV) under the EV Acceleration Challenge. These commitments are part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda to spur domestic manufacturing, strengthen supply chains, boost U.S. competitiveness and create good-paying jobs. Because of President Biden’s leadership and historic investments, electric vehicle sales have tripled and the number of publicly available charging ports has grown by over 40 percent since he took office. There are now more than three million EVs on the road and over 132,000 public EV chargers across the country.  
 
President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act adds and expands tax credits for purchases of new and used EVs—helping bring the benefits of clean energy to communities across the nation. The law also provides incentives to electrify heavy-duty vehicles like clean school buses, and includes support for the installation of residential, commercial, and municipal EV charging infrastructure. These incentives complement investments from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other federal initiatives that are spurring the domestic manufacturing of EVs and batteries and the development of a national EV charging network that provides access to low income and disadvantaged communities.  
 
These incentives will lower the cost of EVs and EV charging infrastructure; increase consumer demand and competition; promote equity and inclusion; and accelerate the growth of the EV market. The White House announced the EV Acceleration Challenge to bring a clean, safe, affordable, and reliable transportation future to Americans even faster.
 
Today, the Federal Government, as well as a number of companies and nonprofits including Prologis, First Student, Hertz, Amazon, Google, Rewiring America, and others, are announcing new commitments to expand EV fleets, increase consumer education, and grow the availability of EV charging.  
 
Today, the Federal Government is announcing: 

  • Federal agencies have already acquired 13,000 light- and medium-duty zero emission vehicles (ZEVs) in FY23—about four times the number of ZEVs acquired in FY22. President Biden’s Federal Sustainability Plan requires federal agencies to transition the largest fleet in the world to all electric by acquiring 100 percent light-duty ZEVs annually by 2027 and acquiring 100 percent medium- and heavy-duty ZEVs annually by 2035.  
     
  • Federal agencies are committing to deploy an additional 24,000 charging stations at Federal facilities by the next fiscal year, adding to the more than 5,000 charging stations already installed at Federal facilities nationwide. 
     
  • The Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center is planning to add two new features to its Station Locator Tool that will help consumers charge their EVs quickly, affordably and conveniently. The tool will soon offer:
    • Charging cost: The cost to charge an EV at an individual charging station.
       
    • Charging speed: The charging speed or power output at the charger port level. 

 
ACCELERATING THE EV TRANSITION 
 
The Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America agenda has spurred public and private sector commitments to accelerate the transition to electric vehicles. State and local governments are also leveraging federal funds to expand electrification of their vehicle fleets. These announcements build on the EV charging network expansion and manufacturing announcements highlighted by the White House in February, which will add more than 100,000 public chargers across the country. Announcements being spotlighted today fall into four categories: Consumer Education and Support, Tools and Resources, EV Fleet Expansion, and Community Charging: Commercial and Multifamily: 
 
Fleet Expansion 

  • First Student, a major supplier of school bus services, is committing to transition 30,000 fossil fuel-powered school buses to electric school buses by 2035. 
     
  • Cirba Solutions, a battery materials and management company, is committing to process end-of-life batteries and Gigafactory manufacturing scrap, creating enough battery-materials to equip 1,000,000 EVs by 2028. 
     
  • Waymo, an autonomous driving technology company, is committing to deploy the all-electric Jaguar I-PACE across all of its ride-hailing service territories this spring and retire its previous generation platform.  
     
  • Amazon is announcing it has rolled out over 3,000 electric delivery vehicles as part of its commitment to bring 100,000 electric delivery vehicles to the road by 2030.
     
  • Trane Technologies, a company focused on efficient and sustainable climate solutions for buildings, homes and transportation, is committing to transition 100 percent of its global fleet of more than 8,000 vehicles, including service vans and trucks, to all electric vehicles by 2030. 

Community Charging: Commercial and Multifamily  

  • Prologis, a major global developer and owner of logistics real estate with more than 3,400 properties in the US, is committing to make every new eligible Prologis development ready for EV charging and transition its U.S. maintenance vehicle fleet to 100 percent alternative fuel vehicles by 2030. 
     
  • Siemens is committing to install charging stations across the U.S. at its facilities and employees’ homes to support the electric conversion of its 10,000-vehicle fleet by 2030 and to set a requirement that 10% of parking spaces include EV charging stations at all new company facility construction projects. 
     
  • CALSTART, Forth, the Electrification Coalition, EVHybridNoire and peer national implementation partners are committing to launch the Charge@Work campaign and Electric Vehicle Adoption Leadership (EVAL) certification program in Fall 2023 which will engage over 50,000 employers\workplaces, representing hundreds of thousands of employees, with the end goal of catalyzing over 100,000 electric vehicle workplace charging stations. 
     
  • SWTCH, an EV charging provider, is committing to expand equitable access to EV charging in underserved communities by deploying over 20,000 EV chargers, the majority of which will serve multi-family buildings, by 2024.  
     
  • Rocky Mountain Institute is committing to launch a multi-family charging accelerator pilot in three states to scale multi-unit dwelling charging infrastructure financing and deployment nationwide in 2024. 

Consumer Education and Support 

  • Hertz is committing to substantially increase its electric vehicle rentals this year forecasting nearly two million EV rentals in 2023, approximately five times the number of EV rentals in 2022, and extending the electric vehicle experience to leisure and business travelers and rideshare drivers across the country.  
     
  • Consumer Reports is committing to delivering expert advice and unbiased information for people who are considering whether to make the shift to an electric vehicle through its new online tool called the Electric Vehicle Savings Finder. It provides detailed, up-to-date information about federal, state, and local EV purchase incentives available to consumers, specific to where they live. 
     
  • GreenLatinos, Hip Hop Caucus, Sierra Club, Clean Energy for America, Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, Electric Transportation Community Development Corporation, National Religious Partnership for the Environment, Plug in America, Public Citizen, Union of Concerned Scientists, Electric Vehicle Association, League of Conservation Voters, Coltura, and the Natural Resources Defense Council are committing to launch Route Zero in April – a cross-country, relay style campaign highlighting the investments made in EV infrastructure and EV manufacturing around the country, focusing on how equitable EV deployment helps mitigate pollution harms. 
     
  • Sierra Club, Plug in America, the Electric Vehicle Association and EVHybridNoire are committing to host more than 300 events in 2023 to celebrate the shift to electric vehicles, including the opportunity to connect with EV drivers in their own communities, ask questions, and get behind the wheel to try EVs out. 
     
  • Mercedes-Benz is committing to launch “Electric Dream Days,” a new EV marketing campaign with retail events at dealerships and EV test drives in April 2023.   

Tools and Resources 

  • Rewiring America, a non-profit organization, is committing to launch an online personal electrification planner in 2023 with the initial goal of helping 100,000 homeowners and renters create roadmaps to electrify their homes and to choose electric vehicles and home chargers. 
     
  • Google is committing to provide up-to-date information about availability and coverage of tax credits across eligible passenger vehicles, through a new Search tool that incorporates federal guidance to surface eligible EV tax credits, alongside other critical information.
     
  • Plug in America, a non-profit organization, is committing to reach 250,000 consumers over the next year with PlugStar.com, its online EV information and shopping tool. 
     
  • Wells Fargo is releasing a new tool to support business leaders transitioning to electric vehicle fleets by modeling deployment that incorporates the cost of electrification, tax credits, cost savings, and environmental benefits. 
     
  • The American Public Transportation Association and the Edison Electric Institute are committing to develop and distribute a new resource for transit agencies to streamline their efforts to electrify their bus fleets.  

The EV Acceleration Challenge is accepting submissions on a rolling basis. The White House will be highlighting additional commitments soon including many more that were already submitted.
 
Organizations can submit a commitment on the EV Acceleration Challenge landing page.

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Foreign Policy, Foreign Relations

FACT SHEET: $7 Billion in Private Sector and US Government Commitments to Promote Climate Resilience, Adaptation, and Mitigation across Africa

From the White House:

In Lusaka, Zambia, in response to Vice President Kamala Harris’s call for the private sector to promote and enhance climate resilience, adaptation and migration across Africa, the private sector made over $7 billion in new commitments. Additionally, the U.S. Government is announcing new federal funding and initiatives to expand access to climate information services and enhance climate resilience and adaptation. These new investments and initiatives will generate significant economic benefits while addressing African nations’ pressing needs resulting from the climate crisis, including food security challenges, by helping to lift-up over 116 million farmers and promote climate-smart agriculture. These announcements demonstrate America’s commitment to partnering with African people and governments, alongside the private sector, to help the continent meet its climate adaptation and resilience, clean-energy access, and just energy transition goals.
 
African nations have historically contributed relatively little to the climate crisis but are disproportionally harmed by its impacts. The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes that to address the climate crisis in Africa, we must work together, building new coalitions between the U.S. government, African governments, civil society, and the private sector.
 
Private Sector Investments
 
The Vice President, as part of her call for the private sector to promote climate resilience, adaptation, and mitigation across Africa, is announcing the following 27 private sector and philanthropic commitments to support farmers, climate-smart agriculture, sustainability, clean energy, and clean transportation.
 
Supporting Farmers and Climate-Smart Agriculture
 

  • Pula, an agricultural insurance and technology company, is responding to the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE) Call to Action and has committed to increase their coverage to 100 million small holder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa by providing up to $20 billion in insurance coverage by 2026. The smallholder farmers pay $20 for $200 dollars of insurance coverage. Insuring previously uninsured farmers can generate a direct positive impact for farming households across Africa, helping to secure their livelihoods by protecting them against the risk of financial losses due to climate-related events.
     
  • Mastercard, a payment and technology company, is responding to the PREPARE Call to Action and has committed to increase access of its Community Pass platform to a total of 15 million farmers in Africa by 2027 to spur economic output and opportunity. Community Pass is a shared interoperable digital platform that provides a commercially sustainable approach to scaling service delivery and increasing access to critical services including healthcare, agriculture, and micro-commerce, for individuals in underserved, remote, and frequently offline communities. Community Pass enables farmers to command higher prices by facilitating increased access to buyers and creating greater price transparency. Community Pass also enables access to inputs, advisory, and other financial service providers. Together, these services improve a smallholder farmer’s agricultural practices, resulting in a more resilient, sustainable, and productive farming system.
     
  • SunCulture, an Africa-focused solar irrigation company, commits to mobilizing $100 million in private capital and $40 million in grant/subsidy funding to deploy smallholder farmer solar irrigation to address food security in Kenya by 2028. SunCulture expects to install 274,000 solar irrigation systems on smallholder farms, reaching nearly 1.1 million direct beneficiaries, creating 411,000 jobs, growing 7.1 million metric tons of food, and generating $5 billion of increased incomes for smallholder farmers.
     
  • One Acre Fund, an agricultural service provider to support African smallholder farmers in partnership with local governments, has committed to raise and invest a $100 million fund to help 1 million farmers plant one billion trees by 2030. Smallholder farmers plant trees to harvest branches and wood, improve the farm environment, and sequester carbon.
     
  • Touton SA, an agro-industrial actor, is leading a consortium expected to commit $79.2 million into sourcing sustainable cocoa by 2025 and benefit an estimated 150,000 Ghanaians. They are supported by Palladium through the Partnership for Forests (P4F) project, and will develop and pilot a landscape-wide governance model in Juaboso-Bia landscape to promote sustainable and deforestation-free cocoa production while protecting forests earmarked as a hotspot intervention area. 
  • AlphaTalentsAfrica (ATA), an investment company supporting agribusiness ecosystems in Africa, has committed $50 million in agrifood industry investments in Africa over the next 20 years. ATA has committed $9 million for its first investment from the $50 million in a manufacturer of quinine-based ingredients for the beverage industry and of medicinal plant-based pharmaceutical products headquartered in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 
  • AgDevCo, a specialist investor in African agribusiness, is investing $10 million in sustainable forestry through New Forests Company. New Forests Company is one of the leading forestry companies in East Africa, with more than 30,000 hectares of plantations in Uganda and Tanzania. The company also supports over 6,000 smallholder farmers through the company’s outgrower program. All timber is Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified, and the plantations sequester significant volumes of carbon, which will increase further as the company and outgrower forestry stands mature. 
  • Switch Bioworks, a living fertilizer company, has committed $10 million to create sustainable biofertilizers in Africa over the next three years. Successful biofertilizer has the potential to triple per-acre productivity at less than one-tenth the greenhouse gas emissions of synthetic fertilizer.
     
  • Agrinfo Company Limited, an aerial imagery and artificial intelligence company that helps farmers make informed crop decisions, has committed $2 million to create a network of 3,000 drone pilots to collect and analyze data that will help 1 million farmers in Africa by 2030.
     
  • Corteva, an agriscience company dedicated to agriculture, has committed $250,000 to support climate smart post-harvest solutions in Ethiopia for 230,000 smallholder farmers and recently committed $100,000 for research that is applying gene-editing techniques to create a parasite-resistant “smart” sorghum by 2025. These collaborations will increase the incomes and food security of smallholder farmers in Africa as the threats of climate change, pest, and disease continue to grow. 
  • Land O’ Lakes Venture 37, the non-profit international development affiliate of the member-owned agricultural cooperative, is working through the Dairy Nourishes Africa portfolio of projects, founded by the Chicago-based Global Dairy Platform and in partnership with the Boston-based Bain & Company. This unique 15-to-20-year public/private partnership will drive inclusive climate-smart economic development in the dairy sector of four East African countries, reaching more than 10 million resource-poor, opportunity-constrained stakeholders. The projects aim to feed 40,000 children daily and double the income of 250,000 commercial-oriented farmers in the next 10 years. 
  • McCormick, a global flavor company headquartered in the U.S., is responding to the PREPARE Call to Action, and through its Grown for Good framework, is investing in the resilience of over 30,000 farmers across their supply chains. They have set an ambitious 100% sustainable sourcing goal for their top five branded ingredients for 2025 and have already achieved 100% sustainability for their vanilla supply chain sourced from Madagascar.

 
Spurring Sustainability, Clean Energy, and Clean Transportation

  • African Parks, a non-profit conservation organization that rehabilitates and manages national parks in partnership with governments and local communities across Africa, has committed to increase its management of 8 new parks by 2030, taking their number to 30. To meet this 30 Parks by 2030 goal, African Parks is committing to raise and invest an additional $1.25 billion in Africa over the next 7 years. This will include a mix of already raised funds in addition to future fundraising.
     
  • Cambridge Industries Ltd (CIL), an engineering, design, procurement, and construction firm focused on renewable energy projects throughout Africa, has committed $950 million to decarbonizing waste management in Kinshasa, anchored by four Waste-to-Value Industrial Parks for the Circular Economy. The universal waste management project, which will utilize anaerobic digesters for waste-to-energy and high-quality recycling scheme is expected to provide waste collection and disposal services to over 3.5 million households, electricity to 400,000 households, and create employment opportunities for more than 35,000 residents by 2030. 
  • ABD Group, a project development firm focused on Africa, commits to finance and operationalize an electrification project with Tanzania Electric Supply Company Limited (Tanesco) by expanding two combined cycle gas power projects to produce 900 MW of electricity through new power plants to expand energy access in a project valued at $800 million dollars. ABD Group has also developed and secured financing to build five wastewater treatment plants in Cote d’Ivoire valued at $52 million. Construction will start in the second quarter of 2023 on five wastewater treatment plants and a pumping station. This will bring wastewater treatment to social housing communities and benefit a projected 40,000 households. 
  • Combustion Associates Inc (CAI), a power plant equipment supplier company specializing in gas turbine power generation packages, has committed to $600 million to reduce vented greenhouse gas emissions through their Flare Gas Elimination Program in Nigeria by 2025. 
  • SAGLEV Inc, a vehicle assembly, manufacturing, and distributing company, is committing $600 million in electric vehicle assembly plants for Ghana – with service to Cote D’Ivoire, Nigeria, and South Africa by 2027. This will create 150 direct jobs and up to 25,000 indirect jobs by 2027. 
  • The Emissions Capture Company (ECCO), an emissions management platform utilizing AI-driven solutions that recycle industrial emission and waste into valuable compounds to support the green economy, commits at least $550 million to reduce emissions and plastic waste from Nestlé sites in Africa between 2023 and 2029 by deploying its proprietary technology that gathers emissions and plastic waste from industrial processes and converts it into sodium bicarbonate and other materials. 
  • The Africa Finance Corporation, a pan-African multilateral development finance institution, will invest and mobilize $510 million for the initial $750 million first close of a $2 billion Infrastructure Climate Resilience Fund (ICRF) with a mission to incorporate climate risk in physical infrastructure built across the continent. The ICRF was launched last year and is focused on the following four sectors: Transport and Logistics, Power and Renewables, Telecoms and Digital Infrastructure, Industrial Parks and Special Economic Zones. It is the first large-scale adaptation program of its kind, and it offers a unique opportunity to support sustainable development in Africa while mitigating the impacts of climate change through a blended finance approach to de-risk investment opportunities. 
  • CrossBoundary Energy, an investment firm, has committed $500 million to support clean energy solutions for African businesses over the next two years. According to World Bank data, access to reliable and affordable electricity is the most significant constraint on economic growth on the continent. CBE addresses this challenge by providing African corporations with fully financed renewable power. CBE expects to employ over 6,000 people and save African businesses between $6.5 and13 million annually in electricity costs. 
  • Wilderness, an ecotourism pioneer, and carbon offset developer Carbon Ark, have signed a partnership with the Zambian government that aims to protect millions of acres of threatened forest and “rewild” previously pristine areas of biodiversity damaged by human activity. The partnership seeks to empower local communities and expand the habitat for endangered wildlife through the implementation of a high-integrity carbon sequestration project. Carbon Ark anticipates that this partnership project will deploy over $500 million in operational investments and create over 1,000 community jobs. The partnership is also supported by U.S. impact investing firm TPG Rise, Bank of America and Jet Blue Ventures through Rubicon Carbon.
     
  • C1 Ventures, a climate technology investment fund focused on decarbonizing large-scale industries by applying breakthrough technologies, has partnered with other investors to commit $250 million in biomanufacturing in Africa over the next four years. The stealth company, backed by C1 Ventures, will employ a gas-based precision fermentation technique to create animal feed protein and biodegradable plastics using captured CO2 and CH4 gases from concentrated natural and industrial sources.
     
  • Coalition for Climate Entrepreneurship (CCE), which includes the Gaia Africa Climate Fund, MassChallenge, Village Capital, SVG’s Thrive Africa, and additional partners, commits over $200 million to identify and support emerging sustainability entrepreneurs in Africa, including by helping scale their innovations to global markets.
     
  • Roam, an electric vehicle company from Kenya, is aiming to raise and invest over the next eight years $150 million to scale up affordable electric motorcycles and public transit solutions that have been uniquely designed to offer a clean transport solution for emerging market consumers and result in economic benefits for micro-entrepreneurs and commuters. Roam’s plan will reduce CO2 emissions while creating 300 direct jobs and more than 24,000 indirect jobs by 2026 with a gender inclusive recruitment strategy.
     
  • Vista Bank Group, a financial service holding company with the objective to build a world-class pan-African financial institution, commits $100 million to be invested toward sustainability initiatives over the next year, such as renewable energy projects and reforestation programs on the African continent. This commitment will help ensure that investments support a resilient economy and deliver financial returns while generating positive value for society and operating within environmental constraints. 
  • World Economic Forum (WEF), an independent international non-government organization, is publicly announcing $18.2 million of recently committed dollars from its Global Plastic Action Partnership (a consortium of public and private sector partners) towards plastic pollution reduction in Ghana through the Ghana National Plastic Action Partnership (their national platform for multistakeholder collaboration). This commitment will support Ghana in transitioning to a circular plastics economy. 
  • Transvolt Energy Systems Limited, a clean energy storage company, is committed to raising $10 million to establish a lithium battery assembly plant in Africa by 2024. This manufacturing facility will increase access to clean energy, reduce the cost of local clean energy installations, generate secondary markets based on refurbished batteries, and create 1,200 direct and indirect job opportunities.

U.S. Government Commitments
 
To further accelerate the implementation of the President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE), which aims to help more than half a billion people in developing countries adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change this decade, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing the following initiatives in recognition of the critical urgency of building climate resilience across the African continent. These announcements build on the bilateral climate adaptation, resilience, and mitigation announcements the Vice President made in Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia.
 
Expanding Access to Climate Information Services
 

  • The GEOGlows Streamflow Forecasting Service. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) is committed to continuing its leadership role as part of the Group on Earth Observations Global Water Sustainability Initiative (GEOGloWS), which provides reliable 15-day forecasts and 50 years of historical streamflow data for every river in the world through a free and open web service. Over the next five years, the United States, including NOAA and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), together with other partners will commit $1.5 million to enhance GEOGloWS service implementation in Tanzania, Botswana and Kenya, building on earlier success in Malawi. GEOGloWS will work directly with partner countries on implementation, including capacity development workshops with user organizations. Through its support for the GEOGloWS European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Streamflow Forecasting Service, NOAA contributes to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) Executive Action Plan to deliver Early Warning for All by 2027. 
  • Expanding Weather Station Networks in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) will commit nearly $10 million in weather stations and capacity building to use and maintain them over the next five years with 10 African governments, beginning with Kenya. These partnerships will support governments to develop or fortify the capability to report weather station data and integrate this information with Earth observations to improve climate, weather, and acute food insecurity forecasts. USAID’s investment in these services will also benefit other sectors such as health; agriculture; water, sanitation and hygiene; and climate adaptation and disaster risk reduction; thereby helping to save lives and livelihoods. This expansion of FEWS NET will help the region and the international community to monitor our rapidly changing climate and support early warning systems for climate hazards and acute food insecurity. 
  • YouthMappers. A Global Mapping Response for African Development.  With support from the USAID’s GeoCenter, young people in 70 countries from more than 350 universities are applying geospatial technology to assist with humanitarian outcomes and to help solve international development challenges related to poverty, disease, and climate change. Through its YouthMappers program, USAID will invest $600,000 to empower more than 5,000 university students around the world to map communities in African countries using earth observations and satellite data. The new data will be used to address health, food security, energy security, disaster response, and resilience in local communities.  
  • FEWS NET Health Threat Extension. Through the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) Health Threat Extension (HTE) pilot activity, overseas USAID Missions in Somalia and Mozambique will explore and address climate-sensitive health threats that generate cross-sectoral impacts. Each Mission will take an interdisciplinary approach to incorporating local health, climate, earth system, and social science data and information. These projects will leverage and enhance existing data systems to advance evidence-based health threat early warning systems. The projects will support evidence-based decision-making, prevention, and planning surrounding forecast health threats and their relationship to food and water insecurity and other development challenges.

 
Enhancing Climate Resilience and Adaptation

  • Energy Access and Climate Resilience. The U.S. Africa Development Fund (USADF) has committed up to $1.5 million in grant funding in FY23 for new and expanded USADF Off-grid Energy Challenges. The areas in which the Challenges will focus include healthcare facilities electrification, energy for agriculture, women in energy, productive use of energy, and innovative energy solutions that will support African governments goals of increasing energy access and improve the standard of living in unserved and underserved communities in Africa. This program will support energy for agriculture, women in energy, and healthcare facilities electrification. 
  • U.S.-Africa Climate Innovation Week. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will advance the development of climate resilience and adaptation projects in Africa by hosting a U.S.-Africa Climate Innovation Week in the United States for leaders from across the continent. This partnership-building engagement will include parallel reverse trade missions to multiple U.S. cities, to showcase innovative American technologies, services and best practices that can benefit Africa’s infrastructure for water management, and early warning and emergency management systems.
Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Protection, Joe Biden, President Joe Biden

FACT SHEET: Biden Administration Takes New Actions to Conserve and Restore America’s Lands and Waters

President Establishes New National Monuments in Nevada and Texas; Directs Secretary of Commerce to Consider Expanding Protections for Pacific Remote Islands Which Would Reach Goal of Conserving 30% of U.S. Ocean by 2030

House on Fire, Bears Ears National Monument. During his first year in office, President Biden protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy, including by restoring protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments.  Last year, President Biden designated his first new national monument, Camp Hale-Continental Divide in Colorado and most recently, he established two new national monuments: Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

At the White House Conservation in Action Summit on March 21, President Biden announced major new actions to conserve and restore lands and waters across the nation, including by establishing Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas. The President also directed the Secretary of Commerce to consider exercising her authority to protect all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands. These new commitments build on President Biden’s historic climate and environmental record, including delivering on the most ambitious land and water conservation agenda in American history.  

The announcements include:

  • Establishing two new national monuments: Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada and Castner Range National Monument in Texas. The designation of these two national monuments demonstrates the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to protect historically and culturally significant areas and conserve our nation’s treasured outdoor spaces. Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada will honor Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples while conserving our public lands and growing America’s outdoor recreation economy. In Texas, Castner Range National Monument will expand access to the outdoors for the El Paso community while honoring our nation’s veterans and servicemembers. Together, these new national monuments protect nearly 514,000 acres of public lands.
     
  • Protecting all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands. The President directed the Secretary of Commerce to consider initiating a new National Marine Sanctuary designation within the next 30 days to protect all U.S. waters around the Pacific Remote Islands. If completed, the new sanctuary would ensure the U.S. will reach the President’s goal of conserving at least 30% of ocean waters under American jurisdiction by 2030.
     
  • New actions to conserve, restore, and expand access to lands and waters. The Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a series of new steps to conserve, restore, and expand access to lands and waters across the country. These include a proposal to modernize the management of America’s public lands, a plan to harness the power of the ocean to fight the climate crisis, a strategy to better conserve wildlife corridors, and new funding to improve access to outdoor recreation, promote Tribal conservation, reduce wildfire risk, and more.

These actions build on more than two years of the Biden-Harris Administration’s progress and historic investments to advance conservation, restoration, and stewardship nationwide:

  • During his first year in office, President Biden protected more lands and waters than any president since John F. Kennedy, including by restoring protections for Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monuments. Last year, President Biden designated his first new national monument, Camp Hale – Continental Divide in Colorado.
     
  • Thanks to the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden has, over his first two years in office, invested over $10 billion in conservation initiatives – more than any other modern president.
     
  • Under the President’s leadership, the Administration is making unprecedented investments in land, water, and wildlife conservation, including by launching the $1 billion America the Beautiful Challenge. These investments will help meet the President’s goal – set during his first week in office – of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
     
  • The Biden-Harris Administration has protected nationally-significant lands and waters across the country, including recent actions to restore protections for roadless areas of the Tongass National Forest, prevent future oil and gas leasing in the entire U.S. Arctic Ocean, safeguard Bristol Bay in Alaska and the world-class salmon fishery it supports, and protect America’s most-visited wilderness area, the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. The Administration is also working to protect Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, the Thompson Divide in Colorado, and accelerating restoration efforts in the Great Lakes, the Chesapeake Bay, the Everglades, and the Columbia River Basin.

Establishing Avi Kwa Ame National Monument in Nevada

President Biden signed a proclamation establishing the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument. This designation will honor Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples by protecting this sacred Nevada landscape and its historically and scientifically important features, while conserving our public lands and growing America’s outdoor recreation economy.

Avi Kwa Ame is considered to be among the most sacred places on Earth by the Mojave, Chemehuevi, and some Southern Paiute people. It is also important to other Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples including the Cocopah, Halchidhoma, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kumeyaay, Maricopa, Pai Pai, Quechan, Yavapai, and Zuni Tribes. Its scenic peaks include Avi Kwa Ame (Spirit Mountain), which is designated as a Traditional Cultural Property on the National Register of Historic Places in recognition of its religious and cultural importance. The area is also home to the one of the world’s largest Joshua tree forests, and provides continuous habitat or migration corridors for species such as the desert bighorn sheep, desert tortoise, and Gila monster.

Establishing Castner Range National Monument in Texas

President Biden also signed a proclamation establishing the Castner Range National Monument, in El Paso, Texas. This action will protect the cultural, scientific, and historic objects found within the monument’s boundaries, honor our veterans, servicemembers, and Tribal Nations, and expand access to outdoor recreation on our public lands. 

Located on Fort Bliss, Castner Range served as a training and testing site for the U.S. Army during World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The Army ceased training at the site and closed Castner Range in 1966. Once the area is sufficiently remediated to be safe for public access, Castner Range will offer unique opportunities for the El Paso community to experience, explore, and learn from nature. President Biden is committed to expanding access to nature for underserved communities that have historically had less access to our public lands, like those bordering Castner Range. Protecting Castner Range connects the area with the Franklin Mountains State Park, creating continuous habitat for wildlife and improved public access for outdoor recreation. Castner Range also hosts significant cultural sites documenting the history of Tribal Nations, including the Apache and Pueblo peoples and the Comanche Nation, Hopi Tribe, and Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.

Directing Consideration of a Sanctuary to Complete Protections for Waters Around the Pacific Remote Islands

Consistent with the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to conserving 30% of lands and waters by 2030, the President signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Commerce to, using the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, consider initiating a sanctuary designation within the next 30 days to expand protections around the Pacific Remote Islands southwest of Hawaii. Such protections would encompass areas unaddressed by previous administrations so all areas of U.S. jurisdiction around the islands, atolls, and reef of the Pacific Remote Islands will be protected.

The potential new National Marine Sanctuary identified in the Memorandum would conserve 777,000 square miles, including the existing Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument and currently unprotected submerged lands and waters. The region has a rich ancestral tie to many Native Hawaiian and Pacific Island communities. The process for a potential sanctuary designation would allow the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to further explore the area’s scientific, cultural, and ancestral linkages, and tailor its management accordingly.

The President is also directing the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Commerce to conduct a public process to work with regional Indigenous cultural leaders to appropriately rename the existing Pacific Remote Islands National Monument, and potentially the Islands themselves, to honor the area’s heritage, ancestral pathways, and stopping points for Pacific Island voyagers, and to provide posthumous recognition for young Native Hawaiian men sent to secure U.S. territorial claim to the islands in the run up to World War II.

New Federal and Other Actions to Conserve, Restore, and Expand Access to Lands and Waters

Ocean Climate Action Plan: The Ocean Policy Committee, co-chaired by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, is releasing the first-ever United States Ocean Climate Action Plan, a groundbreaking roadmap to harnesses the power of the ocean to advance immediate, transformational steps to protect ocean health and address the climate crisis. Acknowledging that there is no path to a healthy and livable climate without the ocean, the plan outlines new actions on the Administration’s ocean-climate priorities, including efforts to advance climate solutions, promote environmental justice, support healthy communities, and ensure a robust and sustainable ocean economy.

Wildlife Corridors Guidance: The White House Council on Environmental Quality is issuing new guidance to Federal agencies on how to better incorporate ecological connectivity and wildlife corridors into federal planning and decision-making. The guidance highlights the importance of connectivity across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats, encouraging collaboration across management and ownership boundaries with states, Tribes, local governments, and private land owners. This helps deliver on one of the America the Beautiful Initiative’s six early focus areas – supporting collaborative conservation of fish and wildlife habitat and corridors.

Strengthening the Stewardship of America’s Public Lands: The Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management in the coming weeks is seeking public input on a proposed rule that will help update and modernize the agency’s tools and strategies for managing America’s public lands. With climate change imposing mounting impacts on the nation’s public lands, and the growing importance of public lands for recreation and conservation, the proposed rule would help ensure that the nation’s lands continue to provide abundant and well-connected wildlife habitat, supply clean drinking water, and power local economies.

New Partnership to Protect Military Readiness and Preserve Green Space: The Department of the Interior and the Department of Defense are partnering to allocate $80 million through a combination of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and matching funds from DoD’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program (REPI) to preserve green space around military installations and improve access to outdoor recreation for millions of Americans. The Departments will make the funding available to states through a competitive process that could support projects on Tribal, private, state, or local lands.

$100 Million Tribal Conservation Funding Pledge: Today, Native Americans in Philanthropy, in collaboration with Biodiversity Funders Group and 15 philanthropies, is launching the Tribal Nations Conservation Pledge with an initial commitment of more than $100 million. This is a new platform for philanthropic organizations to support the conservation work of Tribal Nations and public-private partnerships between the Biden-Harris Administration, Tribes, and philanthropy. The pledge calls on funders to commit to a self-determined amount of funding, or a self-determined percentage of annual programmatic funding, to support the biodiversity and conservation efforts of Tribes, inter-Tribal organizations, and Tribal consortia.

America the Beautiful 2022 Annual Report: The Biden-Harris Administration is releasing the 2022 America the Beautiful Annual Report, an update on progress made to support locally-led conservation and restoration efforts and meet the President’s goal to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.

New Partnership to Accelerate the Conservation of At-Risk Species: The Department of the Interior’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Alliance of Forest Owners and the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement Inc., will announce a memorandum of understanding which formalizes the Wildlife Conservation Initiative, a collaborative partnership focused on advancing the conservation of at-risk and listed species within private working forests nationwide. The announcement comes as the Department of the Interior celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act and highlights the landmark law’s importance in preventing imperiled species’ extinction, promoting the recovery of wildlife, and conserving the habitats upon which they depend. 

Wildlife Crossing Pilot Program: Soon the Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Transportation will open applications for the first-of-its-kind $350 million Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program. The program will build infrastructure that is proven to improve roadway safety – particularly in rural communities – and bring down the roughly 200 deaths stemming from more than one million collisions every year between vehicles and wildlife.

Nearly $200 Million to Reduce Wildfire Risk to Communities: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service announced nearly $200 million in Community Wildfire Defense Grant (CWDG) program grants to communities across the country. Funded by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CWDG program is designed to assist communities, including Tribal communities, non-profit organizations, state forestry agencies and Alaska Native corporations with planning for and mitigating wildfire risks to communities and critical infrastructure as the nation faces an ongoing wildfire crisis.

State Wildlife Grants: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is distributing over $56 million for state fish and wildlife agencies through the State Wildlife Grant Program to support conservation and stewardship efforts for imperiled wildlife and their habitats.  

Boating Infrastructure Grants: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is distributing over $20 million in grant funding to assist states and territories in the construction, renovation and maintenance of marinas and other boating facilities for outdoor recreation. Grants will support projects in 20 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to increase outdoor recreation access and waterway stewardship.  

Pactola Reservoir Protection: The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management announced actions to consider protections for cultural and natural resources in the Pactola Reservoir – Rapid Creek Watershed in South Dakota, including drinking water for Rapid City and Ellsworth Air Force Base, from the adverse impacts of mineral exploration and development. The Pactola Reservoir is the largest and deepest reservoir in the Black Hills National Forest, with 14 miles of shoreline and 150-foot depths on 800 acres and provides high quality recreation for communities and visitors

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Energy, News & Photo Features

Biden-Harris Administration Releases Inflation Reduction Act Guidebook for Clean Energy and Climate Programs

Solar powered New York State farm. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Co-Chair, U.S. Climate Alliance stated: “States are leading the way to a cleaner, greener climate and with the extraordinary investments made possible through the IRA, we’re getting ready to transform our states and our country. Thanks to the hard work of President Biden, Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, New York and the United States are poised to rapidly reduce emissions, support green jobs, save money for hard-working Americans, and improve the health of our communities. This new resource is a critical tool to help get the job done.” © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

The White House released the first edition of a new resource titled Building a Clean Energy Economy: A Guidebook to the Inflation Reduction Act’s Investments in Clean Energy and Climate Action, which provides clear descriptions of the law’s tax incentives and funding programs to build a clean energy economy, lower energy costs, tackle climate change, and reduce harmful pollution. The Guidebook will help state, local, territorial, and Tribal leaders, the private sector, non-profit organizations, homeowners, and communities better understand how they can benefit from these investments and unlock the full potential of the law. The Guidebook walks through the law program-by-program and provides background on each program’s purpose, eligibility requirements, period of availability, and other key details. 

In a letter at the beginning of the Guidebook, John Podesta, President Biden’s Senior Advisor for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, said:
 
“When President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August 2022, he said the new law ‘is not just about today, it’s about tomorrow. It’s about delivering progress and prosperity to American families.’ The Inflation Reduction Act makes a historic commitment to build a new clean energy economy, powered by American innovators, American workers, and American manufacturers, that will create good-paying, union jobs and cut the pollution that is fueling the climate crisis and driving environmental injustice.”
 
The Inflation Reduction Act Guidebook follows the successful model of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Guidebook and creates a roadmap for the clean energy and climate funding available under the law at the program level.
 
Since President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act four months ago, his administration has been working quickly to design, develop, and implement its programs. This Guidebook provides information on current and prospective clean energy and climate programs. In the coming weeks and months, new developments will be published on www.CleanEnergy.gov to keep stakeholders and potential beneficiaries up to date on the latest deadlines and details.
 
The Inflation Reduction Act builds on the foundational climate and clean energy investments in President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Through his historic legislative accomplishments, along with key executive actions and international leadership, the Administration is delivering on the President’s ambitious climate agenda centered on workers, families, and communities. President Biden has made transparent communication and open engagement top priorities as a means to ensure successful implementation and to fully unlock the unprecedented benefits of the law. This Guidebook is critical step toward delivering on that vision.
 
To view the Guidebook in full, click here.
 
Here’s what leaders have to say about the new Inflation Reduction Act Guidebook:
 
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Co-Chair, U.S. Climate Alliance: “States are leading the way to a cleaner, greener climate and with the extraordinary investments made possible through the IRA, we’re getting ready to transform our states and our country. Thanks to the hard work of President Biden, Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi, New York and the United States are poised to rapidly reduce emissions, support green jobs, save money for hard-working Americans, and improve the health of our communities. This new resource is a critical tool to help get the job done.”

Mayor Sylvester Turner, Houston, Texas: “Cities have long been on the frontlines of climate change, but the federal support provided by the Inflation Reduction Act will allow us to take action like never before. We thank Congress and President Biden for passing such historic legislation and providing guidance to lawmakers which will light the path forward to justice driven environmental policies, clean energy economies and a livable planet for all.”
 
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, Madison, Wisconsin, Co-Chair of Climate Mayors: “As the incoming Chair of Climate Mayors, I am pleased that Congress and the White House are delivering critical resources for climate action in the form of the historic Inflation Reduction act, and providing strong guidance for policy makers. We are eager to begin implementing the Inflation Reduction Act at the local level and will be making use of the climate provisions, rebates, and tax breaks within it to better the lives of people in our communities while also securing a sustainable, resilient, and prosperous future for all.”
 
Abigail Ross Hopper, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA): “The Inflation Reduction Act is the most robust and forward-looking climate bill ever enacted. Solar and storage companies are eager for clear guidance on the bill so they can focus on creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs for all Americans and deploying low-cost, reliable energy in communities across the country. Timely, easy to understand discussion of this transformative – but complex – new law is exactly what consumers and industry alike need and we look forward to referring to the IRA Guidebook for this valuable information as we work with other allies to build an equitable and just clean energy future.”
 
Lori Lodes, Executive Director, Climate Power: “Passing the Inflation Reduction Act was an historic victory in the fight against climate change. Now, it’s time for the hard work of implementing the law and making sure people understand how the climate and clean energy investments will positively impact their lives and keep their communities healthy and strong. Cleaner, cheaper, American-made energy is taking off. The guidebook is a critical resource to help people and communities get the information needed to use the incentives found in the climate law.”
 
Faye Park, President, U.S. PIRG: “The new Implementation Guidebook for the Inflation Reduction Act makes it clear: Consumers, cities, states, businesses and community organizations now have myriad opportunities to reduce pollution that makes us sick and worsens global warming. Cities can swap dirty buses and garbage trucks for clean electric ones. Your favorite home chef can get a clean electric or induction stove that doesn’t increase the risk of asthma for their kids. All of us can save energy in our homes and businesses. We encourage everyone to use this great resource to learn more.”
 
Lisa Frank, Executive Director, Washington Legislative Office, Environment America: “Climate change is a problem that impacts all of us. Now, the Inflation Reduction Act helps us all be part of the solution too, by making it cheaper and easier for Americans to go solar, purchase an electric vehicle or weatherize their home. This new implementation guidebook will help raise awareness of new tax incentives and other programs we can use to take President Biden up on this historic offer to save energy, save money and save the planet. We’re excited to put it to work.”
 
David Masur, Executive Director, PennEnvironment: “The Inflation Reduction Act’s tax credits and climate programs will help Pennsylvanians breathe cleaner air, make their homes more energy efficient and expand our use of clean, renewable energy. Thanks to the new Implementation Guidebook, it’ll be easier for cities, school districts, community organizations and all Pennsylvanians to understand and utilize these beneficial programs.”

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change

FACT SHEET: Biden-⁠Harris Administration Announces Roadmap for Nature-Based Solutions to Fight Climate Change, Strengthen Communities, and Support Local Economies

The Biden-Harris Administration at COP27 in Egypt released the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, an outline of strategic recommendations to put America on a path that will unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change, nature loss, and inequity. This marks the first time the U.S. has developed a strategy to scale up nature-based solutions. Examples include protection or conservation of natural areas- such as Acadia National Park in Maine – reforestation, restoration of marshes or other habitats, or sustainable management of farms, fisheries, or forests. These actions can increase resilience to threats like flooding and extreme heat, and can slow climate change by capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Nature-based solutions play a critical role in the economy, national security, human health, equity, and the fight against climate change. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

New actions and recommendations announced at COP27 will make nature-based solutions a go-to option for fighting climate change and boost progress towards U.S. climate goals. The White House provided this fact sheet:

The Biden-Harris Administration at COP27 in Egypt released the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, an outline of strategic recommendations to put America on a path that will unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change, nature loss, and inequity. This marks the first time the U.S. has developed a strategy to scale up nature-based solutions.

To demonstrate how the U.S. is already taking action, the Administration also announced new and recent interagency commitments aligned with the roadmap including: agency actions to ensure over $25 billion in infrastructure and climate funding can support nature-based solutions; a new guide for bringing the power of nature to maximize the value and resilience of military bases; and a new technical working group to better account for nature-based options in benefit cost analysis – a powerful tool for federal decisions.

Nature-based solutions are actions to protect, sustainably manage, or restore natural or modified ecosystems as solutions to societal challenges, like fighting climate change. Examples include protection or conservation of natural areas, reforestation, restoration of marshes or other habitats, or sustainable management of farms, fisheries, or forests. These actions can increase resilience to threats like flooding and extreme heat, and can slow climate change by capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Nature-based solutions play a critical role in the economy, national security, human health, equity, and the fight against climate change.

John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation, and chair of President Biden’s National Climate Task Force, unveiled the roadmap at the opening of the U.S. Center at United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s Conference of the Parties (COP27). Mr. Podesta encouraged other nations to join the U.S. by taking bold action to invest in nature and its many benefits.  

On Earth Day 2022, President Biden issued Executive Order 14072, which recognizes the importance of forests and other nature-based solutions to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen communities and local economies. In the Executive Order, President Biden directed the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the National Climate Advisor, in consultation with agencies, to identify key opportunities for greater deployment of nature-based solutions across the Federal government. The Roadmap submitted to the National Climate Task Force today calls on expanding the use of nature-based solutions and outlines five strategic areas of focus for the federal government: (1) updating policies, (2) unlocking funding, (3) leading with federal facilities and assets, (4) training the nature-based solutions workforce, and (5) prioritizing research, innovation, knowledge, and adaptive learning that will advance nature-based solutions.

This work builds on President Biden’s climate leadership. The Administration is already advancing nature-based solutions in support of the President’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50-52% below 2005 levels in 2030, to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030, and to increase community resilience to extreme weather and other climate impacts. The new Nature Based Solutions Roadmap will help the Administration seize additional opportunities; key recommendations and related new and recent agency commitments are below.

The Biden-Harris Administration also released a companion resource guide with examples of nature-based climate solutions and over 150 resources to spur action. The Nature-Based Solutions Resource Guide: Compendium of Federal Examples, Guidance, Resource Documents, Tools and Technical Assistance is available here.  

NATURE-BASED SOLUTIONS ROADMAP: FIVE STRATEGIC AREAS FOR ACTION

  1. Update Policies to Accelerate Nature-Based Solutions

The roadmap recommends that agencies update federal policies and guidance, making it easier to consider and adopt nature-based solutions. Major areas for advancement include policies and guidance for federal planning, permitting, cost-sharing, risk management, and benefit cost analysis. Aligned Administration actions include:

  • Guidance on valuing nature: Current federal policies and guidance on accounting and analysis can under-value nature-based solutions. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is reviewing central guidance on benefit cost analysis (Circulars A-4 and A-94) to help federal agencies more fully account for the value of nature in regulatory and funding decisions. Today, the White House is standing up a new technical working group on Frontiers of Benefit Cost Analysis to support agencies in benefit cost analysis for nature-based solutions and other analysis needs. This is coupled with the developing National Strategy for a system of natural capital accounts, which will place nature on the nation’s balance sheet and allow regular tracking of the economic benefits that investments in nature-based solutions provide.
  • Nature-based solutions in floodplain management: The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is revising its floodplain management requirements to require consideration of nature-based solutions as alternatives for all projects that have the potential to affect floodplains or wetlands. This action is in response to Executive Order 13690, which established the Federal Flood Risk Management Standard that requires federal agencies to amend their floodplain policies to consider the use of nature-based solutions. Interim program policies are underway.
     
  1. Unlock Funding for Nature-Based Solutions

Federal funding for domestic and international projects can provide a strong lever to increase deployment of nature-based solutions. The roadmap recommends that Federal agencies do more to prioritize nature-based solutions in funding decisions; increase and ease access to this funding; and catalyze private investment. Actions by the Administration to unlock funding include:

  • Supporting nature-based solutions in hazard mitigation: FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) grant program already prioritizes nature-based solutions in its project scoring criteria. Last month, FEMA announced a new effort that will reduce the burden of applying for BRIC funding for disadvantaged communities, and that may make it easier for projects with nature-based solutions to access funding. This effort reduced the discount rate from 7% to 3% for these communities on some projects in FY 2022.
  • Combining solar energy and nature-based solutions: The Department of Energy Solar Energy Technology Office (SETO) is investing in combined development of ground mounted solar systems and pollinator habitat. In fiscal year 2022, SETO selected projects worth $14 million for Deploying Solar with Wildlife and Ecosystem Services Benefits, developing innovative strategies that maximize benefits and minimize impacts to wildlife and ecosystems from solar energy infrastructure.
     
  1. Lead with Federal Facilities and Assets

The roadmap recommends that federal agencies expand their use of nature-based solutions in the design, retrofitting, and management of federal facilities and embed these solutions in management of natural assets through improved planning, co-management, and co-stewardship. Given the scale of federal assets, expanding deployment of nature-based solutions would have direct climate and conservation benefits and send a strong signal to others. Administration actions include:

  • Guide on nature-based solutions for military installations: The Department of Defense is developing a guide on nature-based solutions for Military Installation natural resources management planning. The guide will provide military installation planners and managers with current and actionable information on the appropriate use of nature-based solutions; the current state of science and observed performance reliability; and other considerations regarding design, cost and benefits, implementation, and operations and maintenance. Preliminary guidance will be published in March 2023, with the full technical guide expected by March 2024.
  • Nature-based solutions for energy, the economy and national security: In October, 2022, the Department of Energy launched Sustainable Climate-Ready Sites (SCRS), a site performance rating system. The program challenges DOE sites to apply innovative nature-based solutions as they manage 2.4 million acres of land and carry out their missions. SCRS performance criteria include environmental justice and cultural resource protection, emphasizing collaboration and engagement with communities and Tribal nations. Annual leadership awards will be given to personnel at participating sites that achieve top SCRS category scores.
     
  1. Train the Nature-Based Solutions Workforce

We need a diverse, equitable workforce skilled in building nature-based solutions. To reach this goal, the roadmap recommends that agencies expand educational and workforce training offerings related to nature-based solutions to support good jobs in federal agencies and the private sector. These needs apply across a wide range of skills including engineering, law, finance, ecology, accounting, economics, community planning and maintenance for nature-based solutions. Administration actions include:

  • Growing awareness of how nature-based solutions benefit households: The Department of the Treasury’s Financial Literacy Education Commission (FLEC) is producing a series of reports entitled How Climate Challenges American Household Finances. One report in the series will address housing, and FLEC will include ways that nature-based solutions can provide benefits to households through housing and landscaping options. The report will be released in 2023.
     
  1. Prioritize Research, Innovation, Knowledge, and Adaptive Learning

As the world changes, we must continually innovate and fill gaps in our understanding. The roadmap recommends that federal agencies advance research and innovation in all sectors to fully reveal the scale of the opportunity that nature-based solutions provide, and incentivize continual learning about how and where nature-based solutions work best. Administration actions include:

  • Synthesizing what we know about nature-based solutions effectiveness: Nature-based solutions have been evaluated in different ways by different experts and sectors, making it difficult to see the big picture of what we now about where and how these solutions provide benefits. Today, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) is announcing a study to synthesize this multi-disciplinary evidence base, and evaluate the effectiveness of nature-based solutions for climate mitigation, adaptation and other benefits. An initial database of evaluations will be made public in 2023 and the analysis will be available by 2024.
  • National summit on measuring nature-based solutions: The USACE will host a National Summit on Measuring What Matters at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington D.C. on November 30, 2022. At the public Summit, the USACE Engineering with Nature Program will share the results of a two-year project focused on approaches for advancing comprehensive benefit evaluation for nature-based solutions and other projects. 

 
BUILDING ON THE BIPARTISAN INFRASTRUCTURE LAW AND INFLATION REDUCTION ACT
 
The roadmap and aligned actions build on major investments made through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act. These laws made unprecedented investments in nature-based solutions, placing forests, agricultural lands and coastal wetlands front and center in the climate fight. For example, $20 billion is directed to farmers, ranchers, and private forest owners working to increase carbon storage and reduce emissions. Another $5 billion is for forest management actions that can reduce wildfire risk, store carbon, and cool communities. These laws also weave nature into infrastructure investments. Over $8.7 billion will build climate resilience into transportation systems from the ground up. Another $8.6 billion will restore and conserve coastal habitats, investments that will buffer communities from storms and boost local economies. Several agencies are  acting to leverage recent laws and appropriations towards nature-based solutions, including:

  • Increasing carbon stored in wetlands and grasslands: The Inflation Reduction Act provides additional funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) conservation programs, including the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program (ACEP). In FY23, this funding will be targeted to improve climate and environmental outcomes. The programs will prioritize conservation and restoration of carbon rich wetlands and conservation of grasslands that are at risk of losing carbon and habitat through conversion to more intensive agriculture.
     
  • Promote resilient housing: The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), through the new Green Resilient Retrofit Program, is administering $837.5 million in grant funds and $4 billion in loan authority provided through the Inflation Reduction Act. This program provides grants that include nature-based solutions to improve energy efficiency, water efficiency, and climate resilience. HUD will ensure the program promotes nature-based solutions as effective investments to improve a properties’ climate resilience. HUD will encourage owners to implement the nature-based solution recommendations, where appropriate and feasible. Additional technical assistance will be offered with this program to aid communities in exploring nature-based solutions.
     
  • Protecting watersheds and communities with nature-based solutions: The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes more than $23 billion in supplemental funds to EPA’s Clean Water and Drinking Water State Revolving Funds and nearly $1.9 billion to EPA’s place-base Geographic, National Estuary and Gulf Hypoxia programs. In its March 2022 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law SRF Implementation Memo, EPA emphasized the importance and eligibility of nature-based infrastructure, and encouraged states and communities to make full use of the SRF Green Project Reserve, which supports nature-based solutions and other environmentally innovative activities. EPA’s implementation of its National Estuary, Geographic, and Gulf Hypoxia programs also prioritizes use of nature-based solutions, where applicable, to restore coastal and riparian ecosystems and protect the communities that depend on them.
     
  • Coordinating access to funds that reduce floods and benefit wildlife: The White House Infrastructure Implementation Task Force is advancing an effort to simplify access to new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds that aim to reduce the risk of flooding, improve habitat connectivity for fish and wildlife, and improve public safety. The Department of the Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service, Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are coordinating to facilitate access to these opportunities and ensure efficient use of federal funds.
     
  • Advancing Coastal Resilience with Natural Infrastructure Projects: Through its Climate Ready Coasts Initiative, the Department of Commerce’s NOAA is helping coastal communities by investing in high-impact natural infrastructure projects that build economic and environmental resilience, create jobs, store carbon and restore habitat. The $1.5 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds will be supplemented by future Inflation Reduction Act funding opportunities.

 
DRIVING GLOBAL ACTION
 
President Biden is committed to unlocking the full potential of nature-based solutions for achieving climate goals and combatting nature loss, especially for communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change and environmental injustices. By announcing this roadmap and actions at the UNFCCC COP27, we recognize the need for global action to confront these triple crises and look forward to announcing additional actions during the upcoming Convention on Biological Diversity COP15. We invite partners, communities, and other nations to join the Biden-Harris Administration in taking aggressive action to advance nature-based solutions as powerful tools that the world needs now.
 

Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change, Economic Development, Infrastructure, Labor and Worker Issues, Manufacturing

FACT SHEET: Biden-Harris Administration Rallies States, Cities and Companies to Boost Clean American Manufacturing

White House “Buy Clean” Convening Spurs New Commitments to Reduce Industrial Emissions and Support Made in America Steel, Concrete and More


American manufacturing is getting a new lease on life with the Biden Administration’s Federal Buy Clean Initiatives which leverages the Federal Government’s power as the largest purchaser in the world to advance low-carbon construction materials across its procurement and funded infrastructure projects. President Biden has ushered in an American manufacturing boom, with nearly 700,000 manufacturing jobs added during his Administration so far. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

At a White House convening, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi and Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory joined state leaders to share knowledge and discussed opportunities to collaborate on expanding the purchase of lower-carbon materials made by American workers. Ahead of this convening, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a new set of public and private sector commitments aligned with President Biden’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative, which leverages the Federal Government’s power as the largest purchaser in the world to advance low-carbon construction materials across its procurement and funded infrastructure projects.
 
President Biden has ushered in an American manufacturing boom, with nearly 700,000 manufacturing jobs added during his Administration so far. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, the President secured historic investments to upgrade our nation’s infrastructure and grow our clean energy economy. By leveraging the U.S. Government’s purchasing power, President Biden is catalyzing markets and positioning American manufacturing to compete and lead.

Partnerships between state, Tribal, regional, local and industry leaders are critical to ensure that Buy Clean investments in clean manufacturing and climate-resilient infrastructure benefit all Americans across the country. President Biden’s Action Plan to Accelerate Infrastructure recognizes that over 90% of Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding is delivered by non-federal agencies, underscoring the need for strong partnerships across public and private sectors. Building on recent Administration announcements through the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, today’s actions to create more good-paying manufacturing jobs while tackling the climate crisis include:  

  • New Federal Support: Federal agencies are supporting Buy Clean through new nationwide programs. The Department of Transportation is announcing that 25 states will receive the first Federal Highway Administration Climate Challenge grants to support sustainable pavements. The Department of Energy will coordinate Inflation Reduction Act funds for an Advanced Industrial Facilities Deployment Program. This will help industrial facilities retrofit, upgrade, or install industrial technologies and produce low-carbon materials.
     
  • Private Sector Commitments: Companies are also stepping up and announcing new support for Buy Clean initiatives. Major manufacturers are committing to boost the supply of clean products made in America. Across the industrial sector, 60 companies have joined the Better Climate Challenge where they’ve committed to reducing portfolio-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 50% by 2030. At the same time, leading businesses are using their engineering, design and purchasing power to drive the demand for low-carbon construction materials.
     
  • State and Local Action: Leaders from 20 states will join today’s White House convening to share knowledge and discuss opportunities for collaboration and alignment between State Buy Clean efforts and the Federal Buy Clean Initiative. Cities are also harnessing their purchasing power through public works projects to shift the construction industry toward a cleaner future. Through initiatives like the C40 Clean Construction Accelerator and the Clean Construction Action Coalition, cities and industry leaders are working together to achieve thriving, resilient, and healthy communities—especially for the most vulnerable and historically-marginalized neighborhoods.


NEW FEDERAL SUPPORT

In September, the Biden-Harris Administration announced a major set of Buy Clean initiatives, including a policy to prioritize the Federal Government’s purchase of steel, concrete, asphalt, and flat glass that have lower embodied emissions across their lifecycle—including manufacturing, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal. These construction materials account for nearly half of all GHG emissions from U.S. manufacturing.  
 
New actions from across the Biden-Harris Administration announced today include: 

  • The Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is announcing grants for 25 State Departments of Transportation through the Climate Challenge to reduce GHG emissions in highway projects through the use of sustainable construction materials. It also supports the new Carbon Reduction Program (CRP) announced earlier this year that unlocks $6.4 billion in formula funding for states and localities over five years to develop carbon reduction strategies and address the climate crisis.
     
  • The Department of Energy (DOE), through the Better Climate Challenge, is partnering with organizations across the U.S. economy to set ambitious goals for reducing their carbon emissions, and to share real world strategies to decarbonize buildings and plants. Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, three new industrial firms–Metal Technologies, Inc, Intertape Polymer Group, and Bentley Mills–have joined the Better Climate Challenge. Cleveland-Cliffs is the first American steel producer to participate in the Challenge, and represents the largest industrial energy user in DOE’s Better Plants program. DOE also recently launched the Industrial Heat Shot™ to develop cost-competitive solutions for industrial heating processes, used to make everything from food to cement and steel. The effort aims to not only realize at least 85% lower greenhouse gas emissions by 2035, but also support DOE’s Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap to reduce industrial emissions while benefitting workers and revitalizing communities.
     
  • The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is kicking off a series of stakeholder engagement sessions to help shape $350 million in new grants, technical assistance, and tools from the Inflation Reduction Act to lower GHG emissions in construction materials. EPA’s ENERGY STAR Industrial Partnership is also helping over 800 manufacturing companies improve energy efficiency in manufacturing plants. Industrial energy efficiency can provide over 30% of the emission reductions needed from the industrial sector in 2050.
     
  • The General Services Administration (GSA) recently issued a Clean Construction Materials Request for Information to gather input from industry partners on the availability of domestically-manufactured, locally sourced, and low-carbon construction materials. This feedback will help inform $2.15 billion in Inflation Reduction Act funding for federal procurement of lower-carbon materials and products containing steel, concrete, flat glass, asphalt, and potentially other construction materials used in nationwide federal construction, modernization, and paving projects.
     
  • The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is designing a new program supported by the Inflation Reduction Act. The Green and Resilient Retrofit Program will make funding available to support energy and water efficiency retrofits, make use of clean energy and energy storage, promote building electricity, and increase climate resilience for HUD-assisted multifamily properties. HUD has released a Request for Information to assess program design and uses for project funding and/or financing, including low-emission building materials or processes.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMITMENTS
 
Concrete and steel are the most widely used construction materials in the world. Each year, more than four billion tons of cement are produced, accounting for around 8% of global GHG emissions, all of which occur well before a concrete truck arrives on a job site. Federal, state, and local governments purchase about half of concrete poured and cast in the United States; the other half is purchased by the private sector. Strong partners in the manufacturing sector are innovating and investing in scaling up production of lower-carbon materials. At the same time, design, architecture and engineering firms are integrating cleaner materials into project designs, and major corporate purchasers are sending clear demand signals. Together, we can grow clean manufacturing jobs and reach net zero emissions:

  • General Motors will join the First Movers Coalition, the public-private partnership that intends to help commercialize zero-carbon technologies by harnessing purchasing power. General Motors joins the coalition as a member of the concrete sector, with an ambitious pledge to purchase at least 10% (by volume) near-zero concrete by 2030 and beyond.
     
  • Starbucks commits to reduce carbon emissions in its direct operations and supply chain 50% by 2030, including advancing measurement and reductions in embodied and lifecycle carbon for its equipment and building materials. Through the Greener Stores program, it has launched an open-source educational series, with actions that can be taken to support reductions in carbon, water and waste—including sourcing sustainable materials.
  • Lehigh Hanson, one of North America’s leading producers of cement, concrete and aggregate construction materials, commits to transforming concrete to carbon neutral by 2050, and to generating as much as 50% of revenues from sustainable products by 2030. This will be driven with product transparency and innovation in the manufacturing process and substantial CO2 reduction in its construction products.
     
  • Central Concrete, a subsidiary of Vulcan Materials Company, the nation’s largest producer of construction aggregates, is collaborating on Buy Clean by continuing to develop mixes and evaluate technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with concrete production, and to partner with local governments on the development of low-carbon building specifications. The company has a proven track record of reducing carbon in concrete by up to 50%.
     
  • National Grid commits to work with suppliers to set carbon reduction targets that support net zero, including engaging its most carbon-intensive suppliers through CDP. National Grid will advance these and other priorities within the Federal Buy Clean Initiative.
     
  • Perkins&Will, the second-largest architecture firm in the world, commits to reducing embodied and operational carbon in the buildings and places it designs. The firm uses tools like the Embodied Carbon Calculator (EC3) and Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) to reduce embodied carbon by 30% or more.
     
  • Organizations such as Breakthrough Energy, Meta, and Baker Concrete Construction are teaming up through the NEU Center to scale low carbon concrete solutions. The Center will drive adoption of innovative materials and technologies entering the marketplace. 
     
  • The American Society of Civil Engineers’ Structural Engineering Institute’s “SE 2050”  commits to achieving net zero embodied carbon structural systems by 2050. As of today, the program has 98 structural firms signed onto the commitment across 29 states and the District of Columbia.
     
  • Through “MEP 2040” over 50 Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP) systems engineer and designer firms commit to achieve net zero carbon in their projects: operational carbon by 2030 and embodied carbon by 2040. Signatories request EPDs in project specifications for all building systems.
     
  • Clean Energy Buyers Institute (CEBI) has launched the Decarbonizing Industrial Supply Chain Energy (DISC-e) program to harness the collective power of large consumers to accelerate the market for low-carbon industrial commodities that use carbon-free energy throughout the manufacturing supply chain. Lightsource bp is building 2.0 gigawatts of clean energy, representing more than $2.1 billion of investments across America, with a commitment to domestic content and lower embodied carbon. They are driving demand for made-in-America solar manufactured by suppliers with a lower emissions footprint. Avangrid a member of Iberdrola, will support the group’s global commitment of specifying 100% net zero steel by 2050 and 50% by 2030.
     
  • Arup, a leading global engineering and design firm, commits to lifecycle carbon assessments for all buildings projects, and will help the sector to reach net zero by 2050. 
     
  • Carbon Leadership Forum announces 20 embodied carbon Regional Hubs across 16 states. Strong collaborations with building designers and policymakers have supported their Embodied Carbon educational series and the development of a pilot national database of whole building life cycle analysis models to set ambitious carbon-reduction targets and incentivize high-impact reduction strategies.
     
  • Lendlease and Robert Bird Group join the Climate Group’s ConcreteZero initiative today, committing to specify, buy and use 100% net zero concrete by 2040 and 2050 respectively, with two ambitious interim targets of using 30% low emission concrete by 2025 and 50% by 2030. Together, these global businesses send a strong demand signal for sustainably produced concrete to the U.S. market.
     
  • SSAB Americas commits to producing steel with zero emissions in the United States as early as 2023 (in limited quantities). And today, through the installation of an onsite, renewable fuel storage and supply system, SSAB is embracing emerging technologies that help put the steel industry on the path to be carbon-neutral by 2050.
Biden Administration, Climate Action, Climate Change

FACT SHEET: Biden Proposes Plan to Protect Federal Supply Chain from Climate-Related Risks

Proposed rule to improve efficiency and reduce financial risks from climate change

The Biden Administration is proposing the Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule, which would require major Federal contractors to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks and set science-based emissions reduction targets. © Karen Rubin/news-photos-features.com

This is from a White House fact sheet on the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule which would require major Federal contractors to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks and set science-based emissions reduction targets, which President Biden outlined at COP27 .

The Biden-Harris Administration is taking historic action to address greenhouse gas emissions and protect the Federal Government’s supply chains from climate-related financial risks. In support of President Biden’s Executive Orders on Climate-Related Financial Risk and Catalyzing Clean Energy Industries and Jobs Through Federal Sustainability, the Administration is proposing the Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule, which would require major Federal contractors to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks and set science-based emissions reduction targets.
 
President Biden highlighted this proposed action at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27) in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. Through this action, the United States would become the first national government to strengthen its supply chain by requiring major suppliers to set Paris Agreement-aligned emissions reduction goals.
 
As the world’s single largest buyer of goods and services—purchasing over $630 billion in the last fiscal year alone—the Federal Government faces significant financial risks from climate change. Supply chain disruptions over the past year have impacted every sector, including the Federal Government and its critical contractors and subcontractors. The new Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule would strengthen the resilience of vulnerable Federal supply chains, resulting in greater efficiencies and reduced climate risk.
 
The proposed action is also an integral part of the President’s Federal Sustainability Plan, which set a goal to achieve net-zero emissions procurement by 2050. The Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule covers approximately 85 percent of the emissions associated with the Federal supply chain, which are estimated to be more than twice as large as the emissions from operating the Federal Government’s 300,000 buildings and 600,000 vehicles combined.
 
Managing emissions builds efficiency and effectiveness, and can reduce costs for Federal suppliers. Since establishing the Federal Government’s own climate goals, energy use by buildings and vehicles has dropped 32 percent, saving taxpayers $11.8 billion annually. Suppliers understand that you cannot manage what you don’t measure—tracking emissions and setting and meeting targets can increase resilience and reduce costs.
 
The proposed rule is part of the President’s leadership to implement the first comprehensive, government-wide strategy to measure, disclose, manage, and mitigate the systemic risks that climate change poses to American families, businesses, and the economy. In addition to protecting federal supply chains, agencies are taking new actions to protect pensions and retirement plans, insurance availability, household savings and credit, state and local government programs, our financial system, and the federal budget from the financial risks of climate change.
 
Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule
 
The proposed Federal Supplier Climate Risks and Resilience Rule provides a targeted, risk-based approach by focusing primarily on major Federal suppliers. Under the proposed rule, the largest suppliers including Federal contractors receiving more than $50 million in annual contracts would be required to publicly disclose Scope 1, Scope 2, and relevant categories of Scope 3 emissions, disclose climate-related financial risks, and set science-based emissions reduction targets. Federal contractors with more than $7.5 million but less than $50 million in annual contracts would be required to report Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. All Federal contractors with less than $7.5 million in annual contracts would be exempt from the rule. Small businesses with over $7.5 million in annual contracts would only be required to report Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions under the proposed rule.
 
This proposed rule leverages widely-adopted third party standards and systems that many Federal contractors already use when disclosing their emissions and setting emissions reduction targets, including the CDP environmental reporting system, the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Recommendations, and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) criteria.
 
Today, more than half of major Federal contractors are already disclosing climate related information. These Federal contractors are among the 18,700 companies globally—worth more than half of global market capitalization—that voluntarily disclose emissions and climate risk through CDP, including 1,800 small and medium-sized enterprises. Further, nearly 4,000 companies globally—representing one third of the global economy’s market capitalization—have voluntarily committed to setting science-based targets.
 
The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council, composed of the Department of Defense, the General Services Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and chaired by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy in the Office of Management and Budget, is issuing this proposed rulemaking, which would amend the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to implement these changes, if finalized. The FAR is the primary regulation for use by all executive agencies in their acquisition of supplies and services with appropriated funds.
 
The Biden-Harris Administration invites public input on this proposed rulemaking. To learn more about the rulemaking, visit https://www.sustainability.gov/federalsustainabilityplan/fed-supplier-rule.html