DOE Deputy Secretary
David Turk is Deputy Secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy.
One of the most important and notable recent happenings, and this is something I would not have predicted would have happened so quickly, is the incredible consensus we're seeing around the world.
Whether it's governments or companies, investors are coalescing around net zero carbon commitments, and net zero greenhouse gas commitments. We are internalizing the scientific consensus and stepping up to put these ambitious targets on the table, in line with what science tells us, what we need to do to avoid the worst consequences, and the huge amounts of costs with climate change.
President Biden has committed the U.S. to an irreversible path to net zero carbon by 2050. With the intermediate goal that was just put on the table a few weeks ago, that's fifty percent to fifty-two percent reduction by the end of this decade.
It's not just the U.S. that has put a net zero commitment on the table. It's also the EU, with a similar target as what the U.S. has put on the table. The UK has put seventy-eight percent reduction by 2035 on the table, including net zero.
Japan, another country that is relatively conservative on these things, has also stepped up long-term. Three decades is not that long a period of time, certainly when you talk about the turnover of infrastructure and other things along those lines. China is committing to a net zero target by the 2060 time period.