President Joe Biden pledges to slash U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030

President Biden is pledging to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent by 2030, in the latest push by the administration to aggressively combat climate change. The target more than doubles the country's prior commitment under the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. The announcement comes before the president hosts a closely watched climate summit on Thursday's Earth Day, with world leaders from countries like China and India. For access to live and exclusive video from CNBC subscribe to CNBC PRO: https://cnb.cx/2NGeIvi

President Joe Biden is pledging to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030, in the latest push by the administration to aggressively combat climate change.

The target, announced Thursday, more than doubles the country’s prior commitment under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, when the Obama administration set out to cut emissions 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2025. The U.S. is currently not yet halfway to meeting that goal.

Biden’s pledge on Earth Day is in line with what environmental groups and hundreds of executives at major companies have pushed for. The president announce the target at the closely watched global leaders’ climate summit on Thursday, during which he hopes to urge global cooperation to address the climate crisis.

“This is the decisive decade,” Biden said at the summit on Thursday morning. “This is the decade that we must make decisions to avoid the worst consequences of the climate crisis.”

“This is a moral imperative. An economic imperative. A moment of peril, but also a moment of extraordinary possibilities,” the president said.

All 40 world leaders the president invited to the virtual summit will be attending, including those from China and India, and are anticipated to make new commitments. The U.K. and European Union have committed to slash emissions by 68% and 55%, respectively, by 2030. China, the world’s biggest emitter, has vowed to reach peak emissions by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2060.

During the summit, Chinese President Xi Jinping repeated the country’s previous commitments and emphasized green development and multilateralism to reduce global emissions.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for concrete action on climate change and announced an India-U.S. Climate and Clean Energy Agenda Partnership for 2030. He also re-confirmed the nation’s vow to install 450 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030.

Japan’s prime minister Yoshihide Suga announced a stricter emissions target of 46% reduction by 2030. Canada also updated its target and vowed to reduce 2005 emission levels by 40-45% by 2030.

The summit is a chance for the U.S. to rejoin global efforts on climate after then-President Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris accord, halted all federal efforts to reduce domestic emissions and rolled back more than 100 environmental regulations to favor fossil fuel production.

“I’m delighted to see that the United States is back, is back to work together with us in climate politics,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said during the summit.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who this week announced that Britain would slash emissions by 78% by 2035, praised Biden “for returning the United States to the front rank of the fight against climate change.”

“It’s vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive politically correct, green act of bunny hugging,” Johnson said. “This is about growth and jobs.”

Biden’s pledge also moves forward his campaign promise to decarbonize the country’s energy sector by 2030 and put the country on a path to net-zero emissions by midcentury.

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