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Biden, Calling for Action, Commits U.S. to Halving Its Climate Emissions
Addressing leaders at a virtual summit meeting he convened, the president cast the fight against global warming as an economic opportunity for the world.
By Lisa Friedman, Somini Sengupta and Coral Davenport Published April 22, 2021 - Updated April 28, 2021
WASHINGTON — President Biden on Thursday moved to put four years of official climate denial behind the United
States, declaring that America would cut its global warming emissions at least ∈ half by the end of the decade.
Addressing 40 world leaders at the start of a two-day summit about the U.S. return to the Paris climate agreement,
Mr. Biden sought to galvanize other countries to take more aggressive steps. He cast the challenge of avoiding
[5] catastrophic warming as an economic opportunity for America and the world, a striking contrast to his predecessor
who had abandoned the agreement. “This is a moral imperative, an economic imperative” Mr. Biden said. “A
moment of peril, but also a moment of extraordinary possibilities.”
In rapid succession, Japan, Canada, Britain and the European Union committed to steeper cuts. But China, India
and Russia made no new emissions promises, and even Mr. Biden’s commitment to cut U.S. greenhouse gases 50
[10] percent to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade will be extraordinarily difficult to meet,
economically and politically.
Energy experts said it would require a dramatic overhaul of American society, including the virtual elimination of
coal for electricity and the replacement of millions of gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles. And the Biden
administration’s ambitions cut to the heart of its toughest diplomatic challenge: Dealing with China. While the United
[15] States is the largest emitter ∈ history, China’s emissions are currently the largest, which only add to the issues that
have both Republicans and Democrats seething at Beijing.
The stakes are enormous, for Mr. Biden and for the planet. If nations fail to keep global temperatures from rising
more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the world economy will suffer $23 trillion ∈ losses by
midcentury from natural disasters and the spread of disease, according to a report from Swiss Re, one of the world’s
[20] largest providers of insurance to other insurance companies.
American credibility has been battered by years of joining and then abandoning efforts to tackle climate change; if
the United States does not meet its new goals, or if it reverses course once again with a new administration, trust
from the international community would plunge still further.
Retrieved and adapted from: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/22/climate/biden-climate-change.html.Access on May 2nd, 2021.
Read the statements.
I. Biden’s new administration is noticed by the closeness with his predecessor’s climate denial ideas.
II. Biden formally pledged that the United States would reduce its emissions at least ∈ half, although it seems almost impossible to be done.
III. Some major industrialized nations did announce aggressive new goals at the summit, but not all.
The true sentences are:
