The 2050 target is expected to be adopted in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the primary legislative body for developing climate change legislation in the House.

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“I think the main difference between this and the Green New Deal is the Green New Deal was the 2030 deadline and we have 2050,” said Representative Frank Pallone Jr., the New Jersey Democrat who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee. “If we can meet an earlier deadline, great. But right now the scientific community is saying 2050 is the key year .”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ foremost body on climate science, has found that the world needs to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

Like balancing a bank account, achieving carbon neutrality means balancing the emissions of planet-warming gases with measures that take emissions out of the atmosphere. California pledged under former Gov. Jerry Brown to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045, though that measure has not yet been approved by the legislature. Last month New York announced it intended to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Doing so will mean drastically limiting greenhouse gas emissions and moving away from fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. It could require measures that Republicans have forcefully rejected, like a tax on carbon or a renewable energy standard. It also could mean policies that some Democrats have opposed, like funding carbon capture and storage technologies and building more nuclear power plants.