On Monday morning, as world leaders arrived in Glasgow for the first day of the 26th Conference of the Parties, the Biden-Harris administration announced a series of new actions to address the climate crisis at home and abroad.
The first of these actions was the creation of a new federal initiative, The President's Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience (PREPARE). With a structural resemblance to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the initiative will leverage a whole-of-government approach to "support developing countries and communities" adapt to and manage the impacts of climate change. The announcement included a stated goal of providing $3 billion in adaptation finance annually for PREPARE by FY2024.
The remaining actions announced by the White House follow through on transparency commitments the United States made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Paris Agreement.
As required to every four years under the UNFCCC, the White House released the United States' 7th UNFCCC National Communication, which provides an overview of U.S. actions to combat climate change between 2016 and 2020. Included as an annex to the National Communication are the 3rd and 4th Biennial Reports, which were originally due in 2018 and 2020, but were not submitted by the previous administration.
The White House also released the First U.S. Adaptation Communication under the Paris Agreement, which "summarizes short- and long-term climate risks" and describes U.S. government plans to enhance domestic climate resiliency action. While Article 7 of the Paris Agreement requires parties to submit their first adaptation communication as soon as possible, the U.S. is only the 31st country to do so.
Finally, the White House released The Long-Term Strategy of the United States, a 50+ page report outlining multiple pathways for the U.S. to reach a net-zero economy no later than 2050. The report's key conclusion is that for the U.S. to achieve its mid-century net-zero goal, it must make critical investments and rapidly reduce emissions in the years before 2030.
Missing from the announcements today by the White House is the frequently alluded to National Climate Strategy. The report, which the White House has confirmed is "forthcoming," will complement the Long-Term Strategy by offering a series of policies and actions that will be taken in the short-term to detail how the U.S. will achieve its Nationally Determined Contribution of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
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