Five Ways the United States Can Still Fight Climate Change

With the largest and most powerful tools that President Biden had hoped to use to fight climate change now stripped away, the White House is assembling smaller, less potent policies that can still help the nation reduce its planet-warming pollution.

The Senate climate change legislation was the centerpiece of Mr. Biden's plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Legal scholars say that the justices' decision will set a precedent that could limit the federal government's authority to regulate heat-trapping emissions from cars and trucks.

The United States will not be able to meet Mr. Biden's goal of cutting emissions by half by the year 2030. Scientists say that the United States must reduce its emissions in order to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

Analysts say that if the world's largest economy doesn't keep its word on reducing emissions, it won't be able to get other nations to do the same.

The building the Biden administration was constructing to meet the ambitious climate target was destroyed by Manchin's decision and the Supreme Court decision.

They are trying to put together a structure with a few smaller pieces. It is more difficult. Even with all the tools that Biden had, the 50 percent target wasambitious. They can still achieve a lot with what they have left.

Federal and state leaders can still reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Vehicles are the nation's largest source of planet-warming pollution and experts say that ending the use of gasoline-powered cars is important to avoiding the worst impacts of climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Transportation Department have been directed by Mr. Biden to write a new regulation to rein in tailpipe pollution.

In its most ambitious form, the new regulation would force automakers to double down on selling electric vehicles to meet Mr. Biden's goal that half of all vehicles sold in the United States would be all-electric by the year 2030. The Supreme Court decision limiting the E.P.A's authority to regulate greenhouse emissions may cause the agency to scale back its ambitions.

Image

The nation's second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is coal and gas-fired power plants. The Supreme Court blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a rule that would have shut down power plants that were powered by coal and gas, but the agency still plans to issue a rule that would require electric utilities to reduce their greenhouse emissions.

The agency is planning stricter limits on other types of pollution from power plants that aren't greenhouse gases. Coal-burning power plants, which produce more carbon dioxide than gas-fired plants, are thought to be the dirtiest facilities and could be forced to be shut down.

Methane, which is released into the atmosphere through leaks from oil and gas drilling sites, is a close second to carbon dioxide, which is produced by burning fossil fuels. It lasts for less time than carbon dioxide but packs a bigger punch. Methane has more heat-trapping power than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere.

In the coming months, the E.P.A. plans to issue tougher new regulations to curb leaks of methane from oil and gas wells. Legal experts say that the methane rule has a good chance of being challenged in court.

State-level climate policies will be more important if federal action is not taken on climate change. More than half of the states have enacted some kind of climate policy. The leader is California, which in the coming weeks is expected to finalize a first-in-the-nation regulation requiring that all new cars sold in the state must be electric or zero emission by the year 2035. The same rule is in the works in 17 other states.

100 percent of California's electricity must come from zero-carbon sources by 2045 Twenty-one states have a version of that clean electricity standard, and several are moving legislation to make it even more stringent.

If enough states move forward with aggressive carbon-cutting plans, it could help the United States lower its emissions, but not at levels close to what could be achieved by federal action, according to experts.