US determined to meet climate targets, despite Supreme Court setback

“We are determined to achieve our goals. We can achieve them,” he said of these official commitments, the day after a decision by the very conservative American Supreme Court which severely limits the powers of the State. federal government in the fight against global warming.

“Of course it would help us if we had a majority on the Supreme Court of the United States that really understood the seriousness of the situation and would be better able to try to help rather than somehow another, put a spoke in the wheel,” said the senior diplomat.

President Joe Biden, who returned to the Paris climate accord left by his predecessor Donald Trump, announced in April 2021 that the United States would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by by 2030, compared to 2005.

Joe Biden submitted these new commitments to the UN in order to get closer to the objectives of the Paris agreement of 2015, where John Kerry was at the maneuver as head of diplomacy for Barack Obama.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court ruled that the Federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could not enact general rules to regulate emissions from coal-fired power plants, which produce nearly 20% of electricity in the States. -United.

“I am convinced — and our lawyers are looking at it more closely — that this decision leaves enough leeway to do a lot of things that we must do” against climate change, explained John Kerry in an interview with the AFP.

“No one, neither bank nor private lender, is going to finance a new coal-fired power plant in the United States,” he insisted. “Coal is the worst fuel in the world”.

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