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We Wrote the Climate Playbook in 2020. Biden Has Made Significant Progress–And There’s More Opportunity Ahead

The Biden-Harris administration delivered on climate—making major progress on 85 percent of what Evergreen and our movement partners asked for.

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Executive Branch

Thursday, July 11, 2024

President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris walking together.

As we barrel toward November 2024, first, think back to the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump was presiding over a corrupt administration, doing his best to eviscerate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), roll back key environmental protections to serve his fossil industry cronies, and proudly denouncing the value of science.

Americans approached that election with fervor, demanding something better. We needed a new leader, and we needed to give that leader a plan to hit the ground running on day one—not only to undo past harms but to deliver future wins. During the 2020 presidential primary, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee laid out a comprehensive plan for an all-of-government approach to build a just, thriving, clean energy economy and take on the climate crisis with the urgency it demanded. Inslee’s plan was called the “gold standard” of climate policy by broad swaths of the climate, political, and progressive movements.

Evergreen Action was formed to make sure that vision continued beyond Inslee’s candidacy. We turned Inslee’s policies into the open-source Evergreen Action Plan, announced in April 2020, and worked to ensure it was adopted by the eventual nominee. As the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden picked up key Inslee and Evergreen Action Plan policies, laying out a comprehensive climate plan four years ago—on July 14, 2020. Biden’s plan included historic clean energy investments, creating a Civilian Climate Corps, and a commitment to 40 percent of all climate investment benefits going to disadvantaged communities.

Bar chart showing progress has been made on 85% of the policy recommendations in the Evergreen Action Plan. 155 are complete, 125 have some progress, and 49 have no progress. — Access the data.

Four years later, the Biden-Harris administration has done more on climate than any president before him. According to our latest analysis, the Biden-Harris administration has made significant progress on 85 percent of the policies Evergreen and our movement partners outlined in the 2020 Evergreen Action Plan. That action came about because of a receptive administration pushed forward by a diverse and vibrant environmental movement—with a clear plan. Now, let’s look back on what we were able to achieve by working together and take stock of the stakes ahead. Because we can, and must, take what we learned from the Biden-Harris administration’s first term and secure even bigger gains for our people and planet.

We Set a Clear Climate Roadmap in 2020, and It Delivered Results

With the Biden-Harris administration’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), our movement secured the biggest climate investments in U.S. history (PDF). Hundreds of billions of dollars are transforming our economy in tandem with pioneering standards to clean up pollution. Those funds are being invested directly to support environmental justice and drive forward high-quality union jobs. And as a country, we’re making progress, climate pollution is falling, and clean energy is booming.

We have embarked on the path toward a far better future as a result of the choice America made in 2020 and the clarity with which the movement helped the president deliver. In fact, 280 of the 329 recommendations in the Evergreen Action Plan (EAP) are done or well on their way—that’s 85 percent of the key climate actions we called for!

Waffle chart showing that 236 out of 322 climate actions taken by the Biden-Harris administration were recommended in the Evergreen Action Plan — Source (Analysis on how many climate actions were taken by the Biden-Harris administration): Climate Power

Access the data.

The Biden-Harris Administration’s Transformative Climate Accomplishments

We can kick things off by celebrating some big wins. No other American president has ever done as much to address the climate crisis, and no other president has had the comprehensive climate roadmap to get us there. In fact, the Evergreen Action Plan called for about three-quarters of everything the Biden-Harris administration did on climate since Inauguration Day.

To be sure, success has many mothers—this agenda reflected demands from across the movement, and amplified ideas that environmental justice and labor activists have been calling for for decades. But what’s clear is that when the climate movement made clear demands with an actionable plan, the Biden administration took note and delivered.

Key Programs Within the IRA

Recommendations: Evergreen worked to build key principles from the Action Plan into the IRA, including massive green banking programs that ensure billions of dollars available for transformative climate action in every economic sector and region of the country.

Results: The IRA was a hard-fought victory and transformed the world, pointing the U.S. economy firmly toward clean energy and setting off a global race toward climate policy. As funds flow through the newly-established Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and many other IRA grant programs, we can celebrate a fairer, more dynamic, economy that sets up United States workers to help build a new global clean energy transition. From giant funds to support climate action in every state to the biggest investment since the New Deal in rural electric power, our movement shaped the IRA’s investments to be truly

Environmental Justice

Recommendations: Evergreen also called for those climate investments in the IRA to help address America’s legacy of racist and classist planning and pollution burdens. We demanded that at least 40 percent of federal climate investments be channeled toward disadvantaged communities, modeled after successful state initiatives like those in NY and CA.

Results: The Biden-Harris administration answered that call with the Justice40 initiative. He also formed the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council to advise environmental justice efforts across the administration. EPA also created its first-ever Office of Environmental Justice to drive change forward.

Investing in the Public

Recommendations: Evergreen made clear that the new economy had to serve the public, not just big corporations. We urged that the IRA’s key tax credits be directly usable by governments and nonprofits.

Results: The Biden administration delivered with a direct and elective pay program that does just that. That means we are directly investing in communities and people nationwide, and ensuring that big public spending can be steered by the public, not the billionaires, to do the most good.

Climate Jobs

Recommendations: Climate action means jobs, and Evergreen called for a new American Climate Corps, modeled after the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps, that could energize a whole new generation of Americans to rebuild our country. Evergreen also made clear that we need more union jobs and strong unions to build our clean energy future.

Results: In September 2023, the Biden-Harris administration launched the American Climate Corps, a new program that will train tens of thousands of young people for high-demand careers in climate and clean energy. The Biden-Harris administration delivered on labor policies that Evergreen called for, like tying federal investments and tax incentives to labor standards supporting union jobs. He stood on the picket line with the UAW to demand a fair shake for autoworkers, and UAW won the best contracts in its history, bringing job equity to an electrifying industry.

A Fossil-Free Future

Recommendations: Evergreen called for a just phase-out of fossil fuels while protecting workers and communities.

Results: The Biden-Harris administration stood up to pause new exports of fossil LNG—a giant carbon boom that threatened communities all over America. His team also re-centered conservation as a core priority for public lands—rather than just endless fossil fuel extraction. And his team launched a full initiative to transform and support energy communities as we ready for a fossil-free economy.

Clean Power

Recommendations: From the beginning, Evergreen has called for 100 percent clean power to drive forward our economy, along with finalizing key regulations to clean up power sector pollution.

Results: The Biden-Harris administration delivered the strongest climate and public health rules for the power sector in our history, worked to transform the power grid to support clean energy, and moved forward with standards and plans to use that clean power to decarbonize every other economic sector, from transportation to buildings to industry, just as Evergreen and our partners have called for.

And those are just some of the topline accomplishments. Almost every month of the last four years, the administration has taken strides to move us all forward and build a thriving and just clean energy future. We see that progress rippling out across the country, as leading states use this strong foundation to go further, faster. To call out just a few: Michigan committed to a worker-friendly transition to 100 percent clean power. Pennsylvania laid out plans to decarbonize its key industrial sector, and states across the country developed their paths to invest IRA funds. These wins are a byproduct of the clear agenda set forth by the Evergreen Action Plan and our movement partners, and the eagerness of the Biden administration to deliver.

Progress By the Numbers

Let’s look under the hood. We went back through the Evergreen Action Plan and rated each policy we called for by whether it was complete, in progress, or not yet started. We found that 85 percent of our recommendations had gone into force or were underway. Nearly half were entirely done, and the Biden-Harris administration has laid a strong foundation to ensure they’re able to accomplish the rest, and so much more, if given the opportunity in a second term. The few ideas that are not underway largely need Congress to move forward, and if Americans elect climate champions in all three chambers this November, they can.

You can see our line-by-line review here. The Evergreen Action Plan had 12 sections of actionable ideas, covering nearly every corner of potential action, in our all-of-government approach. We can see clear progress in key sectors of our economy and society:

18/18 Nationwide Climate Policies

Progress bar showing that 14 of Evergreen's nationwide climate policy recommendations are complete, and 4 are in progress.

Of our 18 recommendations to mobilize the entire government, the Biden-Harris administration completed 14, and the remaining four are well underway. This includes the creation of a national environmental justice council, massive investments in communities, and a clear unifying call for climate action across government that the president issued on Day 1 of his term.

15/15 Clean Power Policies

Progress bar showing that 9 of Evergreen's clean power policy recommendations are complete and 6 are in progress.

Of our 15 recommendations to put the U.S. on the path to 100 percent clean power, every single one is complete or in progress. This was no small lift, as it included unleashing billions of dollars in direct investments in cleaning up the grid (PDF) and driving forward to develop standards to cut carbon pollution from power plants all across the country.

21/22 Environmental Justice Actions

Progress bar showing that 13 of Evergreen's environmental justice recommendations are complete, 8 are in progress., and 1 has no progress.

Of our 22 recommendations to advance environmental justice and empower communities, the Biden-Harris administration completed 13 of those actions, and 8 are underway. This includes a directive to set a clear federal path toward environmental justice for all with a government-wide approach to correcting ongoing environmental harms. Billions in investments under Justice40 support that effort. Although the work is never done, and there is much more to do, we saw the administration take major steps forward.

16/27 Pro-Worker Actions

Progress bar showing that 6 of Evergreen's pro-worker recommendations are complete, 10 are in progress., and 11 have no progress.

Of our 27 recommendations to build up a pro-labor, pro-union just transition, more than half (16) were completed or are in progress. These included big moves, including the major efforts to protect workers throughout the economy and the creation of the American Climate Corps. The administration also firmly placed its weight behind the PRO Act to reenergize union labor nationally—and can pass it if a pro-worker Senate is elected in November.

22/35 Actions to Move Away From Fossil Fuels

Progress bar showing that 11 of Evergreen's recommendations to move away from fossil fuels are complete, 11 are in progress., and 13 have no progress.

Of our 35 recommendations on how to move the U.S. away from fossil fuels and address the loopholes and subsidies that Big Oil depends on, the Biden-Harris administration completed or made progress on 22 actions, with more waiting on Congressional action. The administration’s bold decision to side with environmental justice communities on the Gulf Coast and pause permitting massive new export terminals for methane gas (aka LNG) is a leading example of the administration following through on their commitments.

Looking Forward

We have come a long way in four years. The Biden-Harris administration has delivered in response to the movement’s demands, and the world is better for it. But the climate crisis—and the opportunity to build a stronger country—remain before us. In the months ahead, Evergreen will lay out a new Action Plan to map out the path in the ongoing work to avoid the worst of the worst of the climate crisis while seizing the opportunities of lower costs, more jobs, and greater justice in the clean energy economy we all deserve.

As we once again move toward a crucial election, America will face a choice between the president who has done more than any other on climate and a convicted felon soliciting billions from Big Oil to reverse our progress. We’ve done the math, and we know the choice ahead of us is clear. It’s time, once again, for the movement to mobilize around a clear vision for the future, to elect a president who will work with us to get it done.