President-elect Joe Biden has called climate change the “number-one issue facing humanity” and an “existential threat” to the environment.
He intends to start doing something about it on Day 1 of his presidency — and it won’t be limited to the usual federal agencies like the EPA, reports the Washington Post.
Biden is “poised to embed action on climate change across the breadth of the federal government, from the departments of Agriculture to Treasury to State,” the Post says, calling it “a 180-degree turn on climate change” after four years of the Donald Trump’s heedless environmental policies.
“Biden is expected to consider everything from using federal procurement dollars to advance low-emissions vehicles to creating new rules on how major companies assess climate risk, both of which he can do fairly quickly without Congress,” says Yahoo News.
“Other key policies he may enact without legislative approval include limits on fossil fuel production on public lands, directives to prioritize environmental justice considerations and a range of efficiency and emissions standards.”
Biden will work with climate activists and other progressive groups, some of which were critical of President Barack Obama for “not going far enough, fast enough,” Yahoo says, noting that the president-elect has called for the U.S. electric grid to be free of carbon-emitting fossil fuel generators by 2035.
In an opinion article on his news website, former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg writes that “it’s imperative that President-elect Biden take a whole-government approach to climate action right from the get-go.”
Bloomberg credits Biden for recognizing that “there is much he can accomplish without Congress” to achieve his ambitious climate plan — including expecting all members of his cabinet to “prioritize climate action” within their agencies’ operations.
A coalition of former Obama administration officials and experts spent a year creating a 300-page report called the Climate 21 Project, the Post says, describing it as a “holistic approach” to the climate crisis that avoids some of the pitfalls that hampered Obama. Their plan is now in the hands of the Biden transition team.
“From a scientific perspective, the new administration’s commitment to addressing the climate crisis comes in the nick of time,” Yahoo says, noting that scientists warn the world is “dangerously close” to global warming that would have “catastrophic effects.”
“Six of the world’s 10 largest economies have adopted the goal of eliminating their carbon emissions by the middle of the century,” Yahoo says, expressing hope that “it will soon be seven.”
