President-elect Joe Biden is expected to name Gina McCarthy, the former head of the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, the White House’s climate crescent, a new high-level role to take charge of the domestic government response to the climate crisis, a source said. familiar with the decision.
McCarthy, who has vehemently opposed President Donald Trump’s efforts to roll back climate rules in her role as chair of the Natural Resources Defense Council, will lead a new White House office dedicated to US climate policy. The news was first reported by the Washington Post.
McCarthy is Biden’s second major climate contractor and joins John Kerry, a former secretary of state and presidential candidate, who will lead the country’s international talks in the new post of special presidential envoy for climate.
Biden was part of the most ambitious climate platform of all presidential candidates, and since his election he has made tackling climate change one of his top priorities. Creating new high-level climate roles is one of the demands of the Sunrise Movement, young climate activists urging the federal government to take urgent action on climate change.
Biden also began to fill other key roles in his administration with climate credentials, many of whom previously worked in the Obama administration. Brian Deese, the next director of the National Economic Council, played a key role in negotiating the Paris Climate Agreement during the Obama administration. And Janet Yellen, Biden’s choice to become Treasury Secretary, has long warned of the steep economic ramifications of worsening climate change.
The new administration’s embrace of climate champions is in stark contrast to the Trump administration, which withdrew the US from the Paris climate accord, hired climate scientists, undermined federal scientists, and reversed climate policy to allow cars, trucks, and power plants. pollute more.
Now the planet is on track to heat 3.2 degrees Celsius (or 5.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, a long way from the Paris climate agreement goal of limiting warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius (or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), resulting in a catastrophic warming that would largely wipe out coral reefs, prolong the seasons of wildfires, further intensify storms and cause a damaging rise in sea levels.
Under McCarthy’s oversight, the EPA expanded its monitoring of climate pollutants, from requiring power plants to reduce emissions under the Clean Power Plan to enacting three rules aimed at reducing oil and gas-related air pollution. The Trump administration then systematically tried, and in many cases succeeded, to undo those rules.
Biden has already pledged to begin the process of returning to the Paris Accord on his first day at the White House. Kerry, who contributed primarily to the agreement under Obama, will oversee that process and serve as the US interlocutor in those discussions.
Kerry will also be responsible for all other international climate commitments and negotiations, including the Group of Seven (G7) and Group of 20 (G20) meetings and the Arctic Council, and will serve on the National Security Council to advise the President about national security and foreign policy.