Biden pressured to declare climate emergency – 8/11/2023 – World

Forty-eight degrees Celsius. That was the thermal sensation this Friday (11) in the city of Baton Rouge, capital of Louisiana, state in the south of the United States. In other 61 American cities, such as Orlando (Florida), Austin (Texas) and Phoenix (Arizona), forecasts also pointed to above 40°C.

In Hawaii, at least 67 people died as a result of forest fires that hit the island of Maui, the second largest in the state. According to the Democratic governor, Josh Green, the tragedy is probably the biggest ever faced by Hawaiians in their entire history – in the tsunami that hit the archipelago in 1960, 61 were killed.

In the face of extreme weather events, environmentalists and leaders of the American left are pressing President Joe Biden to declare a state of “climate emergency” across the country.

The purpose of the measure is to expand the Executive’s autonomy in combating global warming. Biden could take actions such as suspending crude oil exports and halting drilling without relying on the approval of other powers, according to a study by the Center for Biological Diversity.

Asked on Tuesday if he was prepared to declare an emergency, Biden replied: “I already have.” Pressed once again by the reporter to confirm whether the measure had been taken, he added: “In practice, yes.” Only not.

The backlash was bad from left to right. Activists revolted at the false claim, while conservatives used it as ammunition against the Democrat. “It’s ridiculous to talk about a climate emergency when we have a border emergency,” Tim Scott, a senator and Republican presidential candidate, told Fox News.

“Biden says he’s ‘pretty much’ already declared a climate emergency. I say he really needs to do that and keep moving forward,” wrote Peter Kalmus, NASA climate scientist, author of a scathing op-ed against the president demanding the declaration.

Along with the improvement in the economy, publicizing the government’s climate policy was one of the priorities of the White House in the last week – Biden’s gaffe occurred during an interview with the Weather Channel, the climate channel. The backfire illustrates the president’s challenge in this endeavor.

While the belief that the Earth’s temperature rise is the result of human-made pollution has risen by 10 percentage points among Democrats over the past decade, it has dropped by the same amount among Republicans, according to a Gallup poll.

“Climate and environment should be bipartisan issues in all countries, even if there is disagreement on how to address these issues”, he tells the Sheet Glada Lahn, a climate and society researcher at the British think tank Chatam House. “The US in particular is heavily influenced by the corporate lobby of those who have a vested interest in the current system, and the Republicans listen to them more than the Democrats. So you would need popular movements among Republicans to counterbalance.”

The polarization has resulted in historic approvals, but also in significant concessions by Biden on the subject. On the side of victories, the Inflation Reduction Act, which has just turned one year old, provides, among other things, US$ 370 billion in tax incentives to promote clean energy. The goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 compared to 2005, which would bring the country closer to meeting the goals established by the Paris Agreement.

At the other end, the Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm, announced the construction of the first two industrial plants in the country to “aspirate” carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. What might at first seem like a good idea has been criticized as costly and ineffective lobbying by the oil industry.

“This is useful to give [aos produtores de combustíveis fósseis] an excuse to never stop with oil. It gives them a license to keep producing more and more oil and gas,” environmentalist and former Democratic Vice President Al Gore said of the project last month.

According to him, the cost of the project is so high (US$ 1.2 billion) and the volume of energy required, so great, that it makes more sense to simply prevent carbon emissions.

Another important concession that Biden had to make to advance his environmental agenda in Congress was to authorize, in April, oil drilling in Alaska, a project that became known as Willow. The reserve is about 320 kilometers from the Arctic Circle and is expected to yield more than 600 million barrels over 30 years.

According to calculations by The New York Times, burning all that fuel is the equivalent of putting almost 2 million more cars on the road every year.

The political maneuver also collides with promises made by Biden during the 2020 election campaign. He said that, if elected, he would stop all oil drilling on federal lands, “period”. He also said that exploring for fuel in the Arctic would be “a huge disaster”.

Upon taking office, he even fulfilled his promise, but Justice decisions overturned the blockade. In the first two years of his term, more drilling permits were granted on federal land than during the same period of the Trump administration (6,900 versus 6,172).