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April 22, 2021

Environmental Groups Urge U.S. to Do More to Curb Emissions as Biden Hosts Climate Summit
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The White House is hosting a virtual summit on the climate crisis today
- Earth Day - with 40 leaders representing the world's major economies,
including China. Ahead of the summit, President Biden announced plans to
unwind Trump-era rules that prevented California from adopting its own,
more stringent auto efficiency standards. He also pledged the U.S. will
cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by the
end of the decade.

Environmental groups criticized Biden's pledge as inadequate. Food &
Water Watch said in a statement, "As the world's historical largest
emitter of climate pollution, we have a duty to do much more, and to act
with greater urgency."

Meanwhile, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador will propose a
migration agreement at this week's climate summit. The proposal would
see Central American asylum seekers and Mexican nationals granted a
six-month U.S. work visa and a possible path to citizenship, if they
spend three years planting trees and crops across Mexico.


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