We Ran The Numbers—Biden Has Taken Key Steps but Must Push Further And Move Faster To Deliver On Climate Commitments
One year ago next week, Joe Biden was sworn in after riding a wave of support from climate voters to the presidency. On the campaign trail, he committed to a suite of executive actions to leverage his administration’s authorities to tackle the climate crisis head on, and over the last year Evergreen Action has tracked the administration’s progress on all 46 of those commitments. Today, Evergreen is releasing One Year In: Tracking President Biden’s Progress on 46 Executive Climate Action Campaign Promises, evaluating his progress on those commitments in the first year of his presidency.
Evergreen’s new memo breaks down a year of climate action in the executive branch, and lays out how the White House has taken important steps but has not gone far enough fast enough to tackle the mounting climate crisis and achieve the president’s climate targets. While the administration has made some progress on all 46 of Biden’s climate executive action commitments from the campaign trail, that progress is just a start in the work that’s needed to fulfill the president’s most important climate commitment: to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas pollution by 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. To put our nation on the right path, President Biden will need to make good on every one of his climate executive action campaign commitments, expand his climate executive action ambition, and deliver historic climate investments through legislation.
“President Biden has taken many important steps on climate in the first year of his presidency, but to deliver on the bold campaign vision for climate action that he ran, and won on, he needs to pick up the pace.” said Evergreen Campaigns Director Lena Moffit. “The reality is that major climate investment legislation and bold executive action are both necessary for meeting the president’s visionary climate commitments.
“President Biden has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to turn the tide in the fight against climate change, and how he meets this moment will define his legacy. As he enters the second year of his presidency, Biden must take up even more aggressive executive action on climate change, and also deliver the historic climate investments contained in the Build Back Better Act. Failure is not an option.”
