WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will sign an executive order Friday that seeks to address the effect of the climate crisis on America’s forests.
The order marking Earth Day focuses on reducing the risk of wildfires, fighting global deforestation and using nature itself to decrease pollution.
Biden will sign the order in Seattle, where he stayed overnight after a visit to Portland on Thursday to promote the administration’s infrastructure plans and attend fundraisers for the Democratic Party. He’s expected to deliver remarks about his administration’s efforts to address climate change as well as to lower costs for families Friday afternoon.
The White House said in a release on the order that forests absorb carbon dioxide amounting to more than 10 percent of U.S. annual greenhouse gases.
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“However, these magnificent ecosystems are threatened by the climate impacts that are already here, with intensifying wildfires demanding urgent action to protect our forests and the economies that depend on them,” the release said, adding that the infrastructure law signed by Biden last year provides funding to address wildfires and restore forests.
The order would direct the federal government to conduct “the first-ever inventory of mature and old-growth forests on federal lands,” which will take into account the threats to forests from wildfires and climate change, the White House said. Based on that inventory, the government plans to develop strategies to address those threats.
The Agriculture, Commerce and Interior departments will also be directed to collaborate with the private sector and state, local, tribal and territorial governments to boost forest-related economic opportunities by creating jobs in outdoor recreation and in “sustainable wood, paper, and other forest products.”
The order will also direct the federal government to develop reforestation targets for for the year 2030 and would use “nature-based solutions” to help accomplish that. That includes “everything from restoring marshes, to planting shade trees, to promoting drought-resistant crops,” the White House said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
