Washington:
US President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled a series of executive measures to fight climate change and pledged to follow up on more in an effort to advance his environmental agenda, which has been held back by unsupportive lawmakers and a conservative Supreme Court.
Summer heatwaves have made the threat clear, with 100 million people in the United States being warned of extreme heat and devastating record temperatures causing havoc across Europe.
“Climate change… is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger,” said Biden, announcing a $2.3 billion investment to help build U.S. infrastructure to withstand climate disasters.
“The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake… Our national security is also at stake. (…) And our economy is at stake. So we must act.”
Biden, who delivered his speech at a former Massachusetts coal-fired power station, said his administration would not hesitate to do whatever it takes, with or without lawmakers on board.
“Congress is not acting as it should… This is an emergency and I will view it that way. As president, I will use my executive powers to fight the climate crisis,” he said.
But he stopped declaring a formal emergency, which would give him additional policy powers.
– Repeated setbacks –
Biden began his tenure last year, pledging to deliver on his campaign promises to tackle the global climate crisis, but his agenda took battle after battle.
On his first day in office, Biden signed an executive order to bring the United States back into the Paris climate agreement, later followed by an ambitious announcement that he aims to achieve a 50-52 percent reduction in net greenhouse gas pollution in the US by 2030. compared to 2005. .
But his signature Build Back Better bill, which would have raised $550 billion for clean energy and other climate initiatives, is nearly dead after failing to get the necessary support in Congress as Democrat Joe Manchin said he wouldn’t support the bill in Congress. an evenly divided Senate.
And last month, the Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot issue broad-based greenhouse gas regulations without congressional approval.
The Biden administration has labeled climate policy as a national security issue, made all the more urgent by rising fuel prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It’s not just impacting our infrastructure…it’s impacting our preparedness,” White House spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday.
State Department spokesman Ned Price pointed to the extreme heat wave plaguing Europe this week — with Britain recording a temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) — as more proof that climate action cannot wait.
“We are determined to take advantage of this moment and do everything we can, including on the global stage,” Price told reporters, “to ensure that this decisive decade does not pass without taking appropriate action.”
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