Last fall, the Obama administration trumpeted a joint announcement with China to aggressively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For its part, the United States committed to cutting net greenhouse gas emissions 26–28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. At the same time, President Xi Jinping of China announced targets to peak carbon-dioxide emissions around 2030, with the intention to try to peak early and to increase the nonfossil-­fuel share of all energy to around 20 percent by 2030.


Following up on that announcement, last month President Barack Obama signed an executive order that will help the United States stay on track to fulfill the commitment it made in China. Specifically, in what the administration refers to as a “new sustainability plan for the next decade,” the order directs federal agencies to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 40 percent by 2025.


The administration noted that several federal agencies have already shown their commitment to the goal. For example, the Department of Energy set a goal to reduce its emissions 28 percent by 2020. As of 2013, the department has cut its emissions by more than 34 percent. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the General Services Agency have had similar successes.


The administration said that the pressure is on the federal government, as the single largest consumer of energy in the nation, to perform. It has a footprint of 360,000 buildings, 650,000 fleet vehicles, and $445 billion spent on goods and services. On the same day that the administration announced its new targets, it also released a new scorecard. Each year, this scorecard will track whether the federal government’s major suppliers, which each receive more than $1 billion in federal business each year, have set greenhouse-gas-reduction targets and will publicly disclose their emissions data.