General Motors and Ford Motor Co. have joined a group of more than 400 businesses calling for President Joe Biden to adopt a federal climate target to reduce emissions.
In an open letter to the president, the businesses — which include Lyft, IHS Markit, Google, Amazon and other major corporations — are calling on Biden to set a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.
Biden is hosting a virtual climate summit with world leaders on Thursday and Friday, where the president is expected to announce an "ambitious" 2030 emissions target under the Paris climate agreement, which the U.S. rejoined in February. Biden has said he wants to put the U.S. on an "irreversible path" to achieve a carbon-pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050.
Republicans have warned a shift away from fossil fuels could kill jobs and that Biden’s climate-related executive orders risk alienating key partners.
“I have great skepticism when I hear this administration talk about giving industry time to transition and giving workers clean energy jobs,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va, said in an op-ed last month. “Tell that to the Keystone XL pipeline workers.”
Former President Donald Trump announced in 2017 that the U.S. would withdraw from the Paris agreement -- an action that officially took effect on Nov. 4 last year, a day after the U.S. presidential election.
GM said it plans to stop selling gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, as it works toward becoming carbon neutral by 2040. Ford said it also plans to sell only fully electric passenger vehicles in Europe by 2030 and wants to achieve carbon neutrality globally by 2050.
Amid this week's focus on climate action, a group of 12 governors on Wednesday also called on the administration to set standards that would phase out sales of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks by 2035 and accelerate a shift to zero-emission vehicles.
