Biden’s Final Climate Test: Time for Bold Action on Fossil Fuels
In his final two months in office, President Biden has crucial opportunities to secure his climate legacy and prevent the Trump administration from eroding hard-won climate progress. Biden’s decisions in these final months will determine whether he’ll be remembered as a leader who helped secure climate progress or one who failed to meet the moment when it mattered most.
By Collin Rees and Valentina Stackl
In his final two months in office, President Biden has crucial opportunities to secure his climate legacy and prevent the Trump administration from eroding hard-won climate progress.
Biden’s climate record has been decidedly mixed: His administration has taken some positive actions on climate, but he has also overseen massive fossil fuel expansion that sacrificed frontline communities while threatening to put our climate goals out of reach. The president’s remaining months in office represent his final opportunity to correct course and land on the right side of history.
The OECD Opportunity: A Trump-Proof Climate Victory
This week in Paris, France, the countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will negotiate ending $41 billion in annual oil and gas export finance. This deal represents a rare opportunity: Like a similar successful 2015 agreement ending coal financing agreed to in Barack Obama’s final term, this agreement would be immune to political reversals by Donald Trump. The large majority of OECD countries are ready to reach an agreement to phase out public finance for oil and gas, and Biden’s actions this week will make or break the deal.
Biden has already promised to end international fossil fuel finance via executive order. At COP26 in 2021, he signed the Clean Energy Transition Partnership, a groundbreaking commitment to end taxpayer finance for fossil fuel projects abroad. But despite these commitments, his administration continues to fund fossil fuel projects overseas. The U.S. Export-Import Bank alone has financed almost $2.2 billion in fossil fuel projects since May 2023, including $500 million for 400 new oil wells in Bahrain – a decision so controversial it prompted two climate advisers to resign. Biden must seize this week’s opportunity to fulfill the commitments he made in office and secure a Trump-proof climate victory at the OECD to help the world transition off fossil fuels.
LNG Expansion: A Critical Crossroads
In January, the Biden administration paused approvals of new liquified natural gas (LNG) export projects to update its process for determining whether such projects are in the public interest given the risks they pose to our climate, health, and economy. This pause was an important step towards a phaseout of fossil fuels, but there’s much more the Biden administration can – and must – do before leaving office.
Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) must complete a rigorous review of LNG exports’ significant impacts on public health and the climate, paving the way for a decision that no new LNG exports are in the public interest and outright denial of permits for pending LNG carbon bombs like Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2). The United States is currently the world’s largest LNG exporter, with the U.S. gas industry planning to double its export capacity by 2027. If all pending projects are approved, U.S.-sourced LNG emissions would exceed the European Union’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
Shut Down the Dakota Access and Line 5 Pipelines and Reject the GulfLink Oil Export Terminal
It’s been nearly a decade since the Indigenous-led fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) burst onto the national scene, but efforts to shut down this dirty oil pipeline are far from over. Dakota Access has been operating without a legal permit to cross Lake Oahe in North Dakota for years; the Biden administration’s Army Corps of Engineers has been reviewing the pipeline’s application and could make a decision any day. The Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes and Indigenous grassroots movements are urging Biden to choose “No Action Alternative #2” to shut down and cap the pipeline, respecting Indigenous sovereignty and protecting air, land, water, and climate.
The Line 5 oil pipeline is another clear opportunity for Biden to choose to stand with people over polluters. This over-70-year-old pipeline is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and Indigenous communities and advocates across the Upper Midwest are urging the Biden administration to shut down this outdated and dangerous pipeline. The GulfLink oil export terminal is another pending fossil fuel project that should be rejected by the Biden administration before the president leaves office; the project is a climate and environmental catastrophe that would further threaten communities on the Texas Gulf Coast already suffering from an overload of oil and gas infrastructure. Biden’s Maritime Administration has the chance to reject this dirty project before Trump takes office and send a clear statement that our future is fossil-free.
COP29: A Chance for Real Climate Finance
At this month’s UN climate summit in Azerbaijan, Biden has a key opportunity to demonstrate real climate leadership on the global stage through negotiations for a New Collective Quantified Goal on climate finance. This collective commitment from wealthy nations could mobilize at least $1 trillion annually in grants and grant-equivalent public finance – funding that’s essential for developing countries to adapt to climate impacts and transition away from fossil fuels. But right now global leadership is in short supply.
Importantly, this new global goal will persist regardless of future U.S. leadership. Once established, wealthy nations will collectively bear responsibility for meeting it, even if U.S. contributions falter. With deep moral and legal responsibility as the world’s wealthiest nation and largest historical emitter, the United States can help set an ambitious standard for climate finance and break a decades-long pattern of blocking agreement on the climate debt owed from rich countries to the Global South.
A Strong National Climate Plan (NDC)
By February 2025, all countries must submit updated country-level plans, or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in line with the Paris Agreement. This is the crucial round of NDCs that can keep that 1.5-degree goal within reach. As one of the world’s wealthiest countries, the largest producer and exporter of oil and gas, and biggest historical emitter, the United States has a responsibility to take the lead in phasing out fossil fuels and providing finance for climate for vulnerable nations.
Although Trump will derail climate progress for a few years, Biden has a chance to create a roadmap for other Global North oil- and gas-producing countries, as well as U.S. states committed to real climate action. The United States must commit to a Fair Shares NDC that reflects its disproportionate responsibility for the climate crisis and should include:
- An immediate end to new fossil fuel projects;
- A full, fair, fast, and funded phaseout of fossil fuels domestically;
- An 80% reduction in domestic emissions from 2005 levels by 2035; and
- Funding for climate mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage in Global South countries.
What We Need to See from the Biden Administration in the Next 60 Days
- Support for the OECD agreement to end oil and gas export finance and end all funding of international fossil fuel projects, including TotalEnergies’ disastrous Mozambique LNG;
- Deny all pending LNG export applications and update the climate, health, and economic studies used to determine public interest;
- Shut down the Dakota Access and Line 5 oil pipelines and reject the proposed GulfLink crude oil export terminal;
- Support an ambitious new climate finance goal of trillions of dollars annually in grants and grant-equivalent public finance; and
- Commit to a Fair Shares NDC that reflects the United States’ disproportionate responsibility for the climate crisis and includes:
- An immediate end to new fossil fuel projects;
- A full, fair, fast, and funded phaseout of fossil fuels domestically;
- An 80% reduction in domestic emissions from 2005 levels by 2035; and
- Funding for climate mitigation and adaptation in Global South countries.
The window for action is closing, but President Biden still has many key opportunities to steer the world off the path towards catastrophic climate change. Biden’s decisions in these final months will determine whether he’ll be remembered as a leader who helped secure climate progress or one who failed to meet the moment when it mattered most.