Climate change is a global issue. It matters not who creates the greenhouse gases, they spread globally. The converse is also true. Mitigation efforts occur locally but they spread globally. Global safety is dependent upon our interdependence.
CCR is primarily focused on America’s contribution to climate change and America’s efforts to mitigate climate change. That is huge enough for one website. This does not mean that CCR is oblivious to global connections and global effects. The US can contribute massively to the global effort as well as learn from the many countries outside its borders.
Unfortunately, in May 2017, Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. That withdrawal took effect on November 4, 2020. The good news is that President Joe Biden, on his first day in office, rejoined the Paris Agreement (which took effect on February 19, 2021) and appointed John Kerry as his energy czar. As Biden’s Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry will play perhaps the most critical role internationally in managing a planetary crisis. To succeed, he’ll need to repair the diplomatic damage done by former President Donald Trump while steering through clashing interests at home: a defiant private sector on the one hand, and strident climate activists on the other.
The Climate Action Tracker follows governments to assess their compliance with the Paris Agreement. The US is currently rated as “critically insufficient.” Most recently the CAT said, “US emissions in 2020 will be lower as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Trump Administration’s continuous rollback of climate policy and its response to the pandemic will counteract some of the drop in emissions. Instead of initiating a green recovery the administration used the pandemic as justification to continue relaxing environmental regulations, allowing polluting industries to emit more greenhouse gases during the crisis and exempting them from penalties for violating these rules.”
