Biden Commits U.S. to Cutting Emissions by 50%

On Earth Day last week, President Biden hosted a virtual climate summit, outlining his aggressive strategy to combat climate change. One of his most notable targets included cutting America’s emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by 2030. This goal is nearly double the target that former President Obama set in 2015.

“These steps will set America on a path of a net-zero emissions economy by no later than 2050,” President Biden said Thursday.

As we mentioned in a previous blog post, each year, Earth Day organizers choose a new theme to better educate about a topic – but this year, they kept the same one as 2020: climate action. The reason? “Climate change represents the biggest challenge to the future of humanity and the life-support systems that make our world habitable,” organizers wrote.

Scientists attribute emissions as the greatest cause of climate change.

Reducing our emissions output is critical to preventing future climate change and reversing the effects that are already underway. And it was only a matter of time before President Biden announced his climate action plan. On his first day as president, he fulfilled one campaign promise by rejoining the Paris Agreement, an international treaty on climate action. The Agreement went into force in November 2016, after 55 nations representing 55% of global emissions had formally joined. Today, 190 countries responsible for more than 90% of global greenhouse gas emissions have ratified the Agreement.

For the vinyl industry, reducing our emissions has been a focus for more than 30 years. And since 1987, vinyl chloride monomer emissions have declined 84% while vinyl resin product has increased by 99% in the same time period. Even still, the industry is committed to reducing emissions further. In a materiality assessment conducted in 2015, industry stakeholders told us that emissions reduction remains a priority. So when the Vinyl Sustainability Council laid out its framework for guiding our industry’s sustainability progress, emissions was, and continues to be, one of three key impact categories that we continue to focus.

We look forward to working with the Biden Administration to achieve this goal and advance both our industry’s and country’s sustainability.