Repeal of Clean Energy Law Will Mean a Hotter Planet, Scientists Warn

Climate|Repeal of Clean Energy Law Will Mean a Hotter Planet, Scientists Warn

When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, he called it “the most aggressive action ever, ever, ever to confront the climate crisis.”

Now, Republicans are poised to undo the law, and scientists are warning the result would increase the likelihood that the Earth will heat up by an average of 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels by the end of this century.

“We’re already in an era now where climate change is going to be increasingly dangerous,” said Jonathan T. Overpeck, a climate scientist and the dean of the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability.

That amount of warming — 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) over the course of a century — may sound small. But 2024, the hottest year on record, was the first calendar year where the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, and it delivered deadly heat, violent hurricanes, severe drought and devastating wildfires.

The Biden administration’s strategy to fight climate change consisted of tax breaks to nudge the country toward clean energy and away from fossil fuels, the burning of which is heating the planet, paired with strict limits on pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes.

That would have put the United States on track to cut emissions about 40 percent below 2005 levels by 2035, closer to the goal that scientists say all industrialized nations must meet in order to keep global warming within relatively safe limits. The United States is currently the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China. But it is the country that has pumped the most carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.