Some climate campaigners are heaping further pressure on Joe Biden to drop out of the US presidential election, with activists staging a protest outside the Democratic National Committee’s headquarters on Friday to demand the US president stand aside.
Several dozen protesters are planning to blockade the DNC in Washington on Friday morning to call for a freeze on Biden’s nomination, in favor of another candidate who could prevent Donald Trump becoming president and tearing up Biden’s climate policies.
“Nominating Biden is a recipe for electing Trump,” said Michael Greenberg, founder of Climate Defiance, a climate group known for its attention-grabbing actions. “For the sake of the climate and our democracy we need to choose a nominee who can win in November. That person is not Joseph Biden.”
The environmental movement has been a bulwark for Biden as he secured sweeping climate legislation and tighter pollution rules for cars, trucks and power plants but that support has started to waver amid questions over his mental and physical ability to handle the presidency.
However, several of the largest green groups contacted by the Guardian, including groups that have often been critical of Biden, did not respond to questions on whether they still support the president’s candidacy.
“They are cowards,” Greenberg said of the other climate groups. “We need progressives to be bold on this, we need more voices on the left and the climate movement to do the same. The most important thing for the climate is to beat Trump.”
The Sunrise Movement, the influential youth-led environmental justice group who helped Biden draft his climate agenda in 2020, last week did also call for Biden to “pass the torch” to protect his “climate legacy”.
The group was initially “hesitant” to make such a statement, but ultimately decided the stakes of the election were too high, “especially on climate” and “especially for youth”, said the group’s communications director Stevie O’Hanlon.
“What we’re hearing from young people around the country is that excitement about Joe Biden is at a historic low,” she said. “So yes, we’re really worried that the Democratic party is not putting forward the best possible candidate to take on the threat of Trump this November.”
She said she would welcome other groups to join Sunrise in calling for Biden to drop out: “The more climate organizations that are making that case the better.”
Few other organizations have done so. The environmental organization Center for Biological Diversity also declined to comment on Biden’s candidacy, noting that they do not plan to make an endorsement decision until after the Democratic national convention.
The conservation group Natural Resources Defense Council also declined to comment, as did the environmental group Food and Water Watch, the Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and Evergreen.
Friends of the Earth Action, the political wing of the environmental advocacy organization Friends of the Earth, said it is “still weighing a potential endorsement for 2024”.
“[B]ut we welcome the public discourse surrounding Biden’s electability ahead of the Democratic convention,” said Ariel Moger, government and political director for Friends of the Earth Action. “We can’t afford to lose the White House to someone as dangerous for the planet and democracy as Trump.”
A senior staffer at one green group who spoke under the condition of anonymity said: “Biden has got to go – like, yesterday.”
They said they are “honestly not sure” why their group has not publicly made such a statement, but that the decision may come from the desire to not alienate “some of our supporters who may still be fully behind the president”.
Progressive climate leaders in Congress are also split over Biden’s candidacy. The Michigan representative Rashida Tlaib, a Green New Deal advocate and member of the “squad”, has said she will not endorse the president’s re-election campaign. And the Pennsylvania representative and squad member Summer Lee also said this month that she would support Vice-President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee should Biden choose to step down.
Other progressive Green New Deal advocates, including New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, have vocally backed Biden.
Keith Ellison, the attorney general of Minnesota and former deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee, said he is backing Biden to keep Trump out of the White House. “Quite honestly, what’s the alternative?” he told the Guardian at the progressive conference Netroots Nation last week. “The damage that Trump will do to the environment is just incalculable.”
The Texas representative Greg Casar, a squad member and Green New Deal advocate, took a similar position. “The fact is that we’ve had primaries and Biden is the nominee,” he told the Guardian at Netroots Nation. “The decision is entirely his to remain the nominee or not, and as long as he is, it’s important to rally the country around making sure that he is reelected.”
Only 20 congressional Democrats have publicly called for Biden to end his re-election bid, though powerful Democrats like House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi have reportedly voiced concerns to the president privately.
Aaron Regunberg, who sits on the steering committee of the Pass the Torch campaign, which is calling for Biden to end his candidacy, said he has been “disappointed with the with the refusal to engage in this urgent conversation” by progressives, including climate groups.
By exiting the race to make space for a “stronger candidate”, Biden could “give the country a better chance of preserving a livable climate”, said Regunberg, who by day works on climate litigation efforts.
“The thought of Trump winning is horrifying,” he said. “It’s something the planet can’t afford.”
