President Biden has made it official announced that he is running for a second term in 2024.
Among the first term achievements he touted were his actions to address climate change. There’s a good reason for that: Biden’s re-election may hinge on turnout among young voters who care passionately about the climate.
But worryingly for Biden, a poll by Fossil Free Media and Data for Progress this spring showed a dramatic drop in approval for the president’s climate and energy policies, especially among independent voters and young people. The fallout followed Biden’s decision to endorse the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, breaking a campaign promise to end oil and gas leasing in public lands and waters.
A Change.org petition urging the administration to stop the project has reached more than 5 million signatures. Another 2.3 million people sent comments to the White House urging Biden to reject the project. TikTok videos criticizing the project attracted more 650 million spectators
When Biden approved the project anyway, youth climate activist Magnolia Mead wrote that the decision “it felt like a slap in the face” and showed “disdain for the people who elected” Biden. protests erupted outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ appearance on the Stephen Colbert Show and al president’s conservation summit in the Department of the Interior.
While Biden has signed off on major clean energy investments, Willow’s decision was by no means an anomaly. Just three weeks after the Willow decision, the Department of Energy gave final approval for a massive gas export terminal in Alaska.
This isn’t just bad politics from Biden. It’s bad science.
Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions requires not only building renewable energy, but eliminating fossil fuels. A minimal first step is to stop the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure, as it “locks in” greenhouse gas emissions for the often decades-long lifespan of the infrastructure.
The United Nations Environment Program and civil society partners have made this case in a series of reports. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes the emissions-locking effect of new fossil fuel infrastructure in its most recent report. this conclusion is also supported by several academic studies.
However, the Biden administration has approved it more oil and gas drilling permits on public lands than the Trump administration over an equivalent period of time. They allow a massive construction of oil and gas export terminals on the Gulf Coast and have approved other harmful fossil fuel projects like the Mountain Valley Pipeline.
Even the biggest climate achievement of the Biden administration, the Inflation reduction lawmandated oil and gas leases on public lands and waters as a condition of renewable energy leases and provided subsidies for unproven, dangerous Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to extend the life of the fossil fuel industry.
A standard for limiting emissions from power plants the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is likely to soon propose is also based on CCS technology.
But if science doesn’t move Biden, maybe politics will.
Outrage has been building among climate activists, and more broadly among young people, since the early days of his administration. In June 2021, the White House was twice locked for protesters for the climate outraged by the revelations about him corrupting influence of the oil giant Exxon about the negotiations on the Infrastructure, Investments and Employment Law.
A few months later, in October 2021, communities on the front lines of US fossil fuel accumulation and his supporters, by the thousands, demonstrated at the White House for several days to demand that Biden take executive action to end the fossil fuel era.
Passing the IRA did little to mollify Biden’s critics on climate and environmental justice. The Alliance for Climate Justice publicly criticized the harmful compromises in the bill, while the Indigenous Environmental Network he created fact sheets that explained their serious flaws.
Biden, in short, is alienating key constituencies in his base. The youth-led Sunrise Movement issued a a strong warning to BidenThe youth vote “is vital to Democrats if they hope to win in 2024.”
Biden still has a chance to regain that confidence reversing course on fossil fuels.
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It can order federal agencies to stop appealing court decisions that overturn permits for controversial projects like the Mountain Valley pipeline. It can also order them to stop issuing permits for new fossil fuel infrastructure. He can use his executive power to ban crude oil exports. Best of all, you can declare a climate emergencyunlocking a wide range of powers to transition the US off fossil fuels.
Biden can still take decisive action in defense of people and the planet, and perhaps also save his political career.
Basav Sen directs the Climate Policy Program at the Institute of Political Studies.
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