President Biden opens climate summit pledging to halve US emissions by 2030

The Biden administration on Thursday pledged to slash US greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent to 52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, a new target it hopes will spur other big emitter countries to raise their ambition to combat climate change.

The goal, unveiled at the start of a two-day climate summit hosted by Democratic President Joe Biden, comes as the United States seeks to reclaim global leadership in the fight against global warming after former President Donald Trump withdrew the country from international efforts to cut emissions.

President Biden opened the summit saying that the United States “isn’t waiting” to lead on an issue of “moral and economic imperative.”

“The cost of inaction keeps mounting. The United States isn’t waiting,” he said in the opening address of the two-day summit being hosted virtually by the White House.