President Joe Biden announces modest climate actions; pledges more to come

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced modest new steps to combat climate change and promised more robust action to come, saying, “This is an emergency and I will look at it that way.”

The US president stopped short of declaring a formal climate emergency, which Democrats and environmental groups have been seeking after an influential Democratic senator quashed hopes for sweeping legislation to address global warming. Biden hinted such a step could be coming.

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“Let me be clear: Climate change is an emergency,” Biden said. He pledged to use his power as president “to turn these words into formal, official government actions through the appropriate proclamations, executive orders and regulatory power that a president possesses.”

The US President delivered his pledge at a former coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts. The former Brayton Point power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, is shifting to offshore wind power manufacturing, and Biden chose it as the embodiment of the transition to clean energy that he is seeking but has struggled to realise in the first 18 months of his presidency.

Executive actions that were announced on Wednesday will bolster the domestic offshore wind industry in the Gulf of Mexico and Southeast, as well as spend $2.3 billion to help communities cope with soaring temperatures through programs administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies.

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The trip comes as historic temperatures bake Europe and the United States. Wildfires raged in Spain and France, and Britain on Tuesday shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered.

Calls for a national emergency declaration to address the climate crisis have been rising among activists and Democratic lawmakers after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., last week scuttled talks on a long-delayed legislative package.

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On Wednesday, Biden said the option remains under consideration. “I’m running the traps on the totality of the authority I have,” he told reporters after returning to Washington.

Biden said he’s been told that some of his legislative proposals on climate remain “in play,” but he acknowledged he has not spoken to Manchin.

Gina McCarthy, Biden’s climate adviser, said Biden is not “shying away” from treating climate as an emergency. “The president wants to make sure that we’re doing it right, that we’re laying it out, and that we have the time we need to get this worked out,” she told reporters on Air Force One.

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Environmental groups were less hopeful. “The world’s burning up from California to Croatia, and right now Biden’s fighting fire with the trickle from a garden hose,” said Jean Su, energy justice program director at the Centre for Biological Diversity.

An emergency declaration on climate would allow Biden to redirect federal resources to bolster renewable energy programs that would help accelerate the transition away from fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

The declaration also could be used as a legal basis to block oil and gas drilling or other projects, although such actions would likely be challenged in court by energy companies or Republican-led states.