Climate Fwd: Getting the details on Biden’s climate plan

March 31, 2021

We're also covering a new report on deforestation and the global crisis in public transit.

Highways near South Street Seaport in Manhattan. President Biden is proposing to spend $2 trillion over eight years on improving roads, bridges and other infrastructure.Zack DeZon for The New York Times

Biden details his infrastructure plan

By Coral Davenport

President Biden on Wednesday is announcing the details of his $2 trillion infrastructure initiative, and it includes hundreds of billions of dollars to fight climate change.

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Under the plan, roads, bridges and airports would be made more resilient to the effects of more extreme storms, floods and fires wrought by a warming planet. In addition, spending on research and development could help spur breakthroughs in cutting-edge clean technology, while programs to retrofit and weatherize millions of buildings would make them more energy efficient.

The spending goes far beyond the $90 billion on clean energy programs in President Barack Obama's stimulus plan a decade ago, which Mr. Biden helped oversee as vice president and which produced some high-profile failures. This time, with more money and more demand for clean technology, will be different, Democrats say.
The infrastructure plan doesn't address one of the most immediate dilemmas of climate change: Deciding not just where to spend more money on roads, bridges or sea walls, but where to stop spending — and instead, help people get out of the way.

Quotable: "You have to step up to the plate and take a swing in order to hit the ball, and sometimes you swing and you miss," Jennifer Granholm, the energy secretary, said of past failures. "But if you never swing, you will never hit the ball, and you'll never get a run."

A wildfire burned through part of the vast Pantanal wetlands in Mato Grosso State, Brazil, in August. Maria Magdalena Arrellaga for The New York Times

Deforestation increased sharply despite the pandemic

An annual measure of the state of tropical forests was released this week, and once again the results aren't pretty.

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In its latest findings, the World Resources Institute, a research group, said that loss of old-growth forests in the tropics increased again in 2020, up 12 percent from 2019. That's the third yearly increase in a row, and forest acreage lost is creeping back up toward the highs of 2016 and 2017.

Most of the usual suspects — Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia and others — made the list of countries with high levels of deforestation. Brazil alone was responsible for about 40 percent of the loss. But Indonesia fell out of the top three for the first time since the institute began its reports two decades ago, thanks in part to government enforcement efforts.

Why it matters: By sequestering huge amounts of carbon dioxide, tropical old-growth forests are crucial for combating climate change.

The numbers: 10.3 million acres. That's the total tropical forest loss last year, about the same surface area as Switzerland. — Henry Fountain

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There's a public transit crisis. It's also bad for the climate.

From Rio to London to New York City, many big public transit systems are hanging by a thread. Either people aren't moving around as much or they are scared of coronavirus infection. Revenues from fares have plummeted. Service has been cut or averted with huge bailouts from governments, as in the United States and Europe.

The crisis in public transit is a problem for those cities' ability to address climate change, because public transit offers a relatively simple way to lower greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution.

Why it matters: Cities will have to figure out how to get passengers back on trains, buses and trams as they emerge from the pandemic. They may have to pump in more money to make public transit safer and more efficient. — Somini Sengupta

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Also important this week:

Our virtual events series: The Times is hosting Netting Zero, a series of online events ahead of global climate talks in November. This week's topic: How do we preserve the planet's waters and oceans?
Should we block the sun? An influential scientific body has urged the U.S. government to spend at least $100 million to better understand the possible risks and benefits of solar geoengineering — essentially, the idea of stopping sunlight before it can warm Earth's atmosphere.
Frozen pipelines: The winter storm that hit Texas last month forced drilling companies to intentionally burn off an extraordinary amount of natural gas — on the worst day, it was an amount that could have powered tens of thousands of homes for at least a year.
Send in the scientists: In a prominent example of President Biden's pledge to focus on climate policy, Gavin Schmidt will fill a newly created job of climate adviser to NASA.
Fossil fuel ads: Some advertising firms are signing a pledge to no longer work for oil and gas producers, utility companies and their lobbyists.
Carbon pricing in Canada: The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the federal government's plan to impose a tax on carbon, saying the measure meets an important national need.

And, a closing thought:

Anti-Asian violence and climate justice

A Chevron refinery in Richmond, Calif., is the state's largest polluter. Richmond is also home to a Laotian community that has been disproportionately affected by both industrial pollution and Covid-19.Preston Gannaway for The New York Times

A wave of violence against Asians and Asian-Americans in recent weeks has cast a light on a segment of the American population that has frequently been absent from conversations on racial injustice — and on climate and the environment.

That means vulnerable communities may not be getting the attention they need to address longstanding environmental concerns.

Asian-Americans tend to live in neighborhoods that suffer disproportionately from air pollution, and are likely to be exposed to more carcinogens. (I wrote last year about a Laotian community in Richmond, Calif., that has long dealt with the dangers of living in the shadow of a giant oil refinery and was grappling with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.)

Native Pacific Islanders, too, have suffered from pesticide exposure and health hazards from waste sites located in their communities, and also are on the forefront of dealing with the effects of climate change. (We recently spoke to Haunani Kane, a Native Hawaiian woman who is leading a climate vulnerability assessment on the effects of sea level rise on the Pacific islands.)

In an incident this week, a 65-year-old Filipino woman in New York City was viciously attacked in New York. It's difficult to focus on issues like climate change when you feel immediate hatred around you.

Readers, please take care. — Hiroko Tabuchi

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