As the new year begins, President Biden faces an increasingly narrow path to fulfill his goal of cutting greenhouse gases that are helping to warm the planet to dangerous levels.
The Build Back Better Act is in limbo on Capitol Hill. The Supreme Court is set to hear a case in February that could affect his authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. His party's control of Congress is in danger due to the upcoming elections. Republicans have shown little appetite for climate action, so a takeover of one or both chambers could freeze movement for years.
The next few months are critical to secure the safety of the planet as well as Mr. Biden's climate legacy.
The country has failed the climate test if they can't pull this off, said John Podesta, a former senior counselor to President Barack Obama.
Mr. Podesta praised the Biden administration for making global warming a priority, creating a White House office of domestic climate policy, appointing an international climate envoy to reestablish U.S. leadership on the global stage, and moving forward a handful of regulations.
The physics of climate change are unforgiving.
The average temperature on the planet has warmed by an average of 1.1 degrees Celsius. Scientists warn that if temperatures rise past 1.5 degrees Celsius, the likelihood of disasters will increase. If the world is to avert the most catastrophic impacts, countries must immediately and drastically reduce greenhouse gases caused by burning oil, gas and coal.
The United States will cut its emissions by 50 percent by the end of the decade, according to Mr. Biden. He urged other countries to do the same. If the United States doesn't act by the time countries gather for the next climate talks in Egypt in November, that will be a hard sell.
Mr. Podesta said that Mr. Biden would be graded on his first year on climate policy.
Climate change is one of four priorities identified by Mr. Biden when he entered the White House.
It was a reversal after President Donald J. Trump loosened environmental regulations and sought to expand oil and gas drilling.
Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, who has close ties to Mr. Biden, said that the most important thing he did was to draw a sharp contrast with his predecessor.
Mr. Biden rejoined the Paris climate agreement, in which nearly 200 countries pledged to try to hold temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius. He canceled the permits for the project, which would have taken 1,209 miles from the Canadian oil sands to Nebraska. He called for increasing renewable energy production and doubling offshore wind power by the year 2030.
Mr. Biden has been unable to convince Senator Joe Manchin III to vote for his climate proposals.
Climate advocates were installed in key positions by Mr. Biden and he made tackling the climate crisis a priority. In April, Mr. Biden corralled world leaders to make new pledges to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
Mr. Biden led the passage of a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that included billions for clean energy research and made communities more resilient to disasters, but it will do little to reduce emissions.
Mr. Biden had cracks in his agenda.
A federal judge in Louisiana ruled in favor of Republican attorneys general who argued that Mr. Biden did not have the authority to stop new oil and gas leases. The White House tried to increase oil production even as Mr. Biden urged world leaders to stop burning fossil fuels.
The administration auctioned off nearly 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico, a record for that location, despite a campaign promise by Mr. Biden that he would end drilling on federal lands and waters.
The Interior Department said the lease sale had the potential to yield 1.12 billion barrels of oil and 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas over 50 years. The administration could have done more to prevent the sale, according to environmental groups and several Democratic lawmakers.
Mr. Biden failed to convince Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia to vote for his bill, which would have placed its future in jeopardy. The package was passed by the House.
Mr. Manchin wanted the clean electricity program that would have rewarded utilities that stopped burning fossil fuels in favor of wind, solar and other clean energy to be removed from the bill. The provision that would have banned most offshore oil drilling was scuttled by Mr. Manchin.
Tax incentives for producers and buyers of wind, solar and nuclear power are intended to speed up a transition away from oil, gas and coal. It would help the United States to reach Mr. Biden's climate goals. Senate Democrats said on Tuesday that they were determined to see a version of the legislation pass this year.
Kevin Book is the managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, a Washington-based research firm.
Mr. Book said the administration did not do as much as Mr. Biden said it would.
He said that the world without Build Back Better may not be as green as Biden said it would be.
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White House officials said they were proud of their work. The administration imposed new rules to reduce the federal government's carbon footprint, set regulations to phase out hydrofluorocarbons, and finalized a rule to tighten vehicle pollution in the model year of 2023.
Climate demonstrators outside the White House.
The administration has begun work on other regulations governing emissions of methane, another powerful greenhouse gas, and new requirements that publicly traded companies disclose climate-related financial risks. The United States persuaded other countries to intensify their efforts to fight climate change.
Gina McCarthy, Mr. Biden's climate change adviser, said in a statement that the administration's climate efforts were just getting started.
After a year of overseeing a whole-of-government effort to put our country on a path to tackle the climate crisis, I have never been more optimistic, more hopeful or more confident that our country is leading the charge.
Activists said they were not happy with the president.
EllenSciales, a spokeswoman for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led environmental group that helped spur a jump in young voters concerned about climate in 2020, said that Joe Biden started strong with the executive actions back in January and since then he has really been a disappointment. She thought it would be difficult to get those voters to vote again.
She said that it was a slap in the face to environmentalists when Mr. Biden went to Glasgow to proclaim the United States a climate leader.
The administration has been slow to make progress on major new environmental regulations due to the fact that agencies were decimated during the Trump administration. Three people close to the administration say that the Biden administration slowed some regulatory action so as not to antagonize industry or lawmakers from fossil fuel states before a vote was held on the Build Back Better Act. The EPA is working on new tailpipe emissions rules that will impact vehicles in the model year 2027 and is also designing new regulations for electric utilities. There are still rules that were expected regarding limits on mercury emissions from power plants and wastewater from coal plants.
Richard Revesz, a professor of environmental law at New York University, said that it is important to do a good job. He noted that the Trump administration moved quickly to overturn former President Barack Obama's policies and most of those efforts were considered rushed and sloppy, leading to a high rate of decisions being overturned by courts.
The process of writing regulations is time consuming and rules that are not finalized early in a presidential term can be easily undone by a future administration. The administration will miss a significant opportunity if they don't move by the end of next year.
Legal experts warn that the administration can't count on regulatory efforts. The Supreme Court will hear a case early next year about limits on the ability of the EPA to cut emissions.
The Supreme Court case will establish the limits of the Environmental Protection Agency's authority, according to a lawyer who served in the agency during both Bush administrations.
The president of the Natural Resources Defense Council said that the year 2022, would be a make-or-break year.
Mr. Bapna said that most of the hard work was ahead of them.
