Joe Biden has lauded the US’s progress in fighting the climate crisis during his presidency, while also criticizing Donald Trump for his dismissal of the “more dangerous world” that global heating poses to future generations.
The US president was speaking at a Bloomberg event on Tuesday being held as part of Climate Week in New York, a summit that runs alongside the United Nations general assembly, which the US president spoke at earlier in the day.
Climate Week has already featured stark warnings that the phasing-out of fossil fuels is moving too slowly. On Tuesday, the UN’s top climate diplomat called for the proliferation of renewable energy to spread from wealthy to poorer countries more urgently.
Biden said that “virtually nothing” had been done about climate change when he came into office, but that his policies “changed the mindset” about the issue by reframing it as an opportunity to build new jobs in clean energy.
“We passed the most significant climate law in the history of the world,” Biden said of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. “They told me it couldn’t be done, but we did it. Not a single Republican voted for it.”
More than 330,000 jobs and tens of billions of dollars in investments in electric vehicle, battery and renewable energy manufacturing have spread across America since the bill, Biden said, meaning that the “US has reasserted global leadership on climate change”.
This progress is “in stark contrast to my predecessor”, Biden said of Trump. “He says he’d repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, he’d let our factories shut down, he’d move the world backwards.
“His denial of climate change condemns future generations to a more dangerous world.”
In reference to a baseless conspiracy theory espoused by Trump, Biden added: “And by the way, windmills do not cause cancer.”
Biden said the US was now in prime position to lead the world in dealing with the climate crisis. “The rest of the world looks to us,” he said. “If we didn’t lead, who the hell leads? Who fills the vacuum? That’s our obligation and our incredible opportunity.”
Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said: “If more developing countries don’t see more of this growing deluge of climate investment, we will quickly entrench a dangerous two-speed global transition. The injustice and imbalance is not only unacceptable, it is self-defeating – for every economy.”
