President Obama will sign an executive order Thursday ordering federal government agencies to slash their greenhouse gas emissions.

A White House official said the order is a way for the government to “lead by example” by curbing emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases believed to cause global warming.

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Several major companies that supply goods to the federal government will announce their own voluntary effects to cut greenhouse gases, the White House said.

Since the federal government is the largest single consumer of energy in the country, its actions can make a major dent in the greenhouse gas emissions of the country as a whole.

That means cuts in the government can send the country a long way toward Obama’s goal of reducing the United States’s greenhouse gases 26 percent to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The executive order will be the second major effort the Obama administration has taken to reduce emissions in federal agencies.

In 2010, Obama set a goal of reducing federal greenhouse gases 28 percent below 2008 levels by 2020.

As of fiscal year 2013, the most recent year for which data are available, the government was more than halfway there. It had dropped emissions 17.2 percent from 2008 levels, according to the Council on Environmental Quality.

Obama will also travel to the Energy Department’s headquarters Thursday as part of the announcement, the White House said.

He will tour the building’s rooftop solar panels and talk with representatives of major federal suppliers that have agreed to cut emissions.