One of the biggest news stories of April 2021 was the virtual climate summit gathering of more than 40 world leaders on Earth Day 2021, which Australia attended (but we won’t get into that just yet) and hosted by the US.
Biden went big and warned countries need to do more as our '“time is short” when it comes to addressing dangerous levels of global heating, and that the “world’s largest economies, have to step up”.
Prior to and following on from the summit, the White House, Canada, Japan, and the UK came out with even more ambitions greenhouse gas reduction targets, including:
US - a reduction between 50% and 52% by 2030 (based on 2005 levels)
Canada - a reduction between 40% and 42% by 2030 (based on 2005 levels)
Japan - a reduction between 43% by 2030 (based on 2013 levels)
UK - a reduction of 73% by 2035 (based on 1990 levels here)
Which ultimately put pressure on Australia to announce a net-zero commitment and cut greenhouse gas emissions, however...