CATF Supports U.S. NDC, Setting Stage for Actions to Reduce Methane Emissions and Invest in Zero-Carbon Technologies
BOSTON – Clean Air Task Force supports the newly unveiled U.S. Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to cut greenhouse emissions by 50 to 52% by 2030, an “appropriately ambitious goal that will boost the American economy – and whose success will hinge on aggressive regulatory actions to U.S. methane and carbon emissions as well as significantly increased federal funding for carbon-free technologies,” according to Conrad Schneider, Advocacy Director at Clean Air Task Force.
The Biden administration announced the NDC today, as world leaders convened at the White House for the first-ever Leaders Summit on Climate.
Schneider added:
“It’s encouraging to see President Biden usher in a new era of U.S. leadership with a strong NDC, and we’re looking forward to working with his administration to take the necessary steps to achieve it — including regulatory actions to swiftly cut methane and carbon emissions and significantly increasing federal funding for carbon-free technologies. With the NDC as the North Star, the Biden administration can and must take concrete measures right now to chart the course to a zero-carbon future.”
In December of 2020, Clean Air Task Force issued a policy framework highlighting that the U.S. can reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector to at least 65 percent below 2012 levels, while creating jobs and deploying existing technology. Clean Air Task Force super-pollutants program director Sarah Smith advocated for the NDC to include a strong methane target in an April op-ed in The Hill, part of many leading voices calling for immediate action to cut methane emissions.
Schneider continued: “It’s also important to underscore the long-term economic benefits of the Biden administration’s climate ambition. CATF has run the numbers and found that investing in innovative zero-carbon technologies like carbon capture and zero-carbon fuels would not only help decarbonize our energy system but would lift up American workers and help safeguard the U.S. economy in a carbon constrained world. Mobilizing to achieve this aggressive NDC will be a boon to the U.S. economy, and put scores of Americans to work.”
A recent analysis from Clean Air Task Force found that the American Jobs Plan’s carbon capture components could grow the U.S. carbon management capacity by 13 times by 2035, while safeguarding and creating tens of thousands of American jobs. An analysis of the Plan’s 15 hydrogen projects aimed at decarbonizing a range of industrial applications could create at least 18,000 jobs in 2025.
Schneider continued: “Finally, Clean Air Task Force appreciates the Biden administration’s attention to carbon-free technology innovation under the American Jobs Plan and now the NDC. Current decarbonization technologies won’t quite get us where we need to be, and U.S. government support is critical to developing, demonstrating, and deploying innovative technologies like carbon capture, removal and storage, advanced nuclear, and zero-carbon fuels to take us across the finish line.”
Clean Air Task Force has advocated for significantly increased federal funding for the research, development, demonstration and deployment of zero-carbon technologies like advanced wind and solar, long-duration energy storage, advanced demand-efficiency, zero-carbon fuels, carbon capture, nuclear energy, and super hot rock deep geothermal. In March, Clean Air Task Force joined with the Edison Electric Institute and other groups to form the Carbon Free Technology Initiative, issuing specific policy recommendations related to each of these carbon-free technologies, and amounting to a call for a nearly tripling in federal funding for clean energy development.
Press Contact:
- Stuart Ross, Communications Director, Clean Air Task Force, [email protected]
- Troy Shaheen, Communications Director, U.S., Clean Air Task Force, [email protected]
