President Joe Biden pledged that the United States will double the amount of money it offers to developing countries to help curb climate change within the next three years and move away from financing fossil-fuel-intensive projects overseas.
“Good ideas and good intentions aren’t enough,” Biden said in remarks during the virtual climate summit he held Thursday with dozens of world leaders. “We need to ensure the finance will be there, both public and private, to meet the moment of climate change and to help us seize the opportunity for good jobs, strong economies, and a more secure world.”
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Biden’s new commitments are part of the first U.S. international climate finance plan, which the White House unveiled Thursday morning. In addition to pledging to double climate finance to developing countries by 2024, the U.S. also intends to triple its funding to global efforts to adapt to the effects of climate change by that year.
The plan says the Biden administration will work with Congress to meet those funding levels, though the White House is likely to face staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers.
Also as part of the plan, the U.S. development bank, the International Development Finance Corporation, will move to transition its finance portfolio to net-zero emissions by 2040. That net-zero commitment, which will include increasing investments in projects that capture and store carbon dioxide, is the earliest of any development bank, Biden said.
The DFC will also increase its financing of low-carbon technologies, striving for at least one-third of its total investments to be focused on curbing climate change by 2023, according to the plan.
The Biden administration is also calling on federal agencies to end global investments in “carbon-intensive fossil fuel-based energy projects,” though the plan does not specify a date by which it will require agencies to do so nor define which types of projects qualify as “carbon-intensive.”
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In addition, the plan says U.S. support for fossil fuel projects may continue “in limited circumstances” if there is a “compelling development or national security reason” to continue financing.
The Biden administration’s wide-ranging plan also calls on several other federal agencies, including the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Export-Import Bank, and the Treasury Department, to scale up climate finance efforts, such as increased funding for renewable energy and climate adaptation efforts.
In addition, the plan calls on the Treasury Department to engage with other countries on setting climate disclosure standards.
