The National Climate Task Force led by Assistant to the President and National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy held its second meeting today. The Task Force was created by the Jan. 2021 Executive Order on “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad.”
According to a White House summary, Task Force members discussed plans for integrating climate change action throughout their agencies and discussed the Apr. 22 Earth Day Leaders Summit and agency opportunities to reduce emissions. The summary also noted the Forest Service’s decision to invest ~$220 million to leverage Land and Water Conservation Fund monies for projects to help fuel rural economic recovery, create jobs, support voluntary stewardship efforts, and conserve public lands, as well as EPA’s decision to relaunch its climate change website to provide new data and information.
At its inaugural meeting held last month, Task Force members underscored their commitment to collaboration and coordination across government “to ensure the United States leads the world in a clean energy revolution that creates American jobs with the chance to join a union and builds back an inclusive, equitable economy,” and discussed the group’s charter, early actions, near-term priorities and key milestones, role of the White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy, and how agencies are prioritizing climate in their decision-making and how they plan to collaborate with other agencies.
The meeting also included a visit by Vice President Kamala Harris, who conveyed a need to focus on communities most vulnerable to climate change and a commitment to overseeing an unprecedented approach to addressing climate change in the United States and globally.
The Task Force is charged with supporting the organization and deployment of a government-wide approach to combat the climate crisis, including by facilitating planning and implementation of key actions including ocean, water, land, and biodiversity conservation.
