Biden to Announce Steps to Help Communities Deal With Extreme Heat
“From Day 1, President Biden has treated climate change with the urgency it requires,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said, pointing to measures like the Inflation Reduction Act, the most significant climate law in history.
Scientists and activists called the new measures important but insufficient. With research showing that recent heat waves in the United States and Europe would have been “virtually impossible” without the influence of man-made climate change, many climate experts said Mr. Biden needed to take a strong stand against new fossil fuels.
“We know with almost perfect confidence that we are supercharging these heat extremes — we’re doing it by burning fossil fuels,” said Jonathan Overpeck, the dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan. He added, “If we don’t stop the burning of fossil fuels, all of this continues to get worse.”
Pressed by reporters on Wednesday, Ms. Jean-Pierre would not say whether the president was prepared to declare a climate emergency, a tool that would give Mr. Biden more power to expand renewable power and block oil and gas projects without Congress’s assent. Activists have long pushed Mr. Biden to do so, but the White House has expressed worries in the past about its authority to take such unilateral measures, fearing that they might be overturned in the courts.
Instead, Ms. Jean-Pierre pointed to the ongoing benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Mr. Biden signed into law last year but whose funding will continue flowing for years to come. It contains nearly $370 billion in tax credits to spur wind and solar power and electric vehicle battery manufacturing in the United States and incentives for purchases of electric vehicles, induction stoves and electric heat pumps.
Source: The New York Times
