Changes in Climate Change in the US
After a four-year hiatus, the United States is officially taking climate change seriously again. On Thursday, President Joe Biden pledged that by 2030 the nation will slash its carbon pollution 50 to 52 percent compared to 2005 levels. Many climate scientists say it’s imperative that the United States, which has put more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere over time than any other country , cut its climate-warming carbon pollution at least in half this decade. That’s necessary, they say, to limit global warming to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius), the widely accepted threshold for preventing catastrophic damage from climate effects. The U.S. is currently the second biggest carbon emitter annually after China, with emissions of 6.6 billion metric tons in 2019. Its two largest sources are the transportation and power sectors, which respectively accounted for 29 and 25 percent of the 2019 total. Heavy industry, including steel, cement, and ...