Biden’s game-changing administrative actions for climate

With rising seas, fighting climate change is a participatory challenge for us against the elements. It is all hands on deck for reducing carbon emissions.

Friday, President Biden stood by the Red Sea in Egypt before delegates from 197 nations at the UN Climate Conference COP27. With Republicans taking the majority of the House and Congress hogtied on delivering on climate change pledges, Biden took command with administrative actions to achieve 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) by 2030.

Major federal government contractors interested in bidding for any of the over $630 billion that the US government spends annually would be required to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and climate-related financial risks and set science-based emission reduction targets.

In short, corporations without a responsible carbon emission plan with accountable benchmarks will not be awarded government contracts. It is a waste of taxpayers' money for the government to pay companies that are not implementing steps to reduce their carbon emissions while compensating communities for damages caused by extreme weather events and rising sea levels.

Biden's solution for businesses is not prescriptive or regulatory. Instead, it is market-driven and competitive. Game on. Businesses are incentivized to develop their own best carbon-emission-reducing practices.

The process is transparent, where all may see what companies propose as their best practices. With government contracts at stake, business groups will likely collaborate to fast-track the development of best practices and not get caught without a government contract.

This is game over for corporate greenwashing. How green a corporation is will be quantified by the actual amount of carbon emissions being reduced right now and more in the future. Less important are flaunted superficial factors such as the percent of recycled materials, the number of trees planted, or carbon offsets purchased. Public records will demonstrate to what extent corporations are fighting climate change or colluding with global warming.

Biden has taken a page from the Massachusetts Decarbonization Roadmap Act of 2020, where the government works with businesses to develop best practices to reduce emissions and set ambitious timed benchmarks.

Businesses that snooze lose while the decarbonization and money-saving train leaves the station.

For example, about a decade ago, Frito-Lay, a Pepsi subsidiary, improved their delivery trucks' fuel efficiency. This led to a dramatic increase in the applications of drivers. Many were climate champions who wished to show off green trucks. Recently Frito-Lay announced the purchase of 40 Ford eTransit trucks.

By setting the bar for government contracts to meet carbon-reducing benchmarks, the work is put back on corporations. World leaders understand that government expenditures should remediate, not worsen, climate change.

There are costs to buying diesel locomotives. Better for governments fighting climate change to purchase battery-electric 4,400 horsepower locomotives built in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Together, corporations working with governments, held to task by savvy citizens, we are slowing global temperature rise.

As more climate-best practices take hold, we turn the tide to reduce the 900 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ton by ton.

We can do this.

It is just a matter of effort and time.

Rob