Biden’s All-of-Government Climate Pledge Begins to Take Shape
- Biden tasks agencies with more than 60 to-dos in first weeks
- Administration set social cost of carbon at $51 a ton for 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Feb. 27, 2021.
Photographer: Samuel Corum/The New York TimesThe Biden Administration’s decision to throw out the Trump White House’s method for calculating the social cost of carbon was one of the first tangible actions on the president’s lengthy climate change to-do list as he works to convince the world that the White House is once again serious about a global response to warming temperatures.
The approach, announced Friday, pegs the social cost of carbon at $51 a ton for 2021 after adjusting for inflation at a 3% discount rate. The Biden plan, which replaces a Trump-era method that was as low as $1, will be used on an interim basis. A higher dollar figure makes it harder for agencies to issue new regulations that are more permissive to industry because it more starkly shows the benefits of tough rules outweigh the costs.