Environmental groups are calling on the White House to take action on climate and the environment in the last months of Joe Biden’s presidency and before Donald Trump takes over.
They made their comments as the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference kicks off in Azerbaijan on Monday, with participants already sounding the alarm on the president-elect’s potential impact on climate. Trump has the support of the fossil fuel industry and has called climate work a “hoax.”
“We will drill, baby, drill,” he pledged over the summer. Many have speculated about Trump’s intentions to enforce an initiative called Project 2025, which would upend the National Weather Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity released a statement urging the Biden administration to secure the country’s climate legacy in coming weeks.
“Climate diplomacy on a boiling planet doesn’t stop for a climate denier,” Ben Goloff, senior campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said. “Before Trump takes office, Biden officials need to use the next two months to set up a bulwark of protections and secure their climate legacy.”
Goloff said that US leaders must commit America’s “fair share” of global climate finance, as well as making good on last year’s agreement to transition away from fossil fuels by rejecting “mega-polluting projects.”
“He should also act quickly to fill all federal judicial vacancies as a wall of defense to Trump’s rampage of legal attacks,” Goloff said.
The group made its comments as the United Nation’s COP29 climate event began. Speaking at COP29, John Podesta, the senior climate advisor to the president, said that Trump’s re-election would not deter efforts.
“Facts are still facts. Science is still science. The fight is bigger than one election, one political cycle in one country,” he said.
Podesta told attendees that the outcome of the election was “bitterly disappointing,” acknowledging Trump’s own commitments to reverse climate and environmental “safeguards.”
“He has vowed to dismantle our environmental safeguards — and once again withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement,” he said. “This is what he has said, and we should believe him.”
Podesta discussed the impacts of extreme climate events, including Hurricanes Helene and Milton and Typhoon Yagi in Asia. He also highlighted investments in clean energy and job creation in the sector.
“It’s precisely because the [Inflation Reduction Act] has staying power that I am confident that the United States will continue to reduce emissions – benefitting our own country and benefitting the world,” he said.
The Sierra Club also joined the Center for Biological Diversity to call on Biden to enact protections to help the environment before Trump takes over.
“Congress returns for the lame duck session on November 12, and when it gets back to work, the administration should pull out all the stops to work with Congress and use the powers of the presidency to get some more big things done,” the group said.
Ben Jealous, the executive director of the Sierra Club, urged that the administration continue its historic climate work and continue to invest in clean energy and manufacturing. He stressed that rejecting the expansion of liquefied natural gas export is critical to fighting fossil-fuel-driven climate change. Liquefied natural gas is a fossil fuel, that is primarily made up of methane.
“But while that happens, we also need to stop bad policies that threaten reckless fossil fuel expansion — the opposite of the direction in which we need to move,” Jealous wrote.
The Sierra Club also called for the protection of public lands and waters, suggesting Biden “go out with a bang” by using the Antiquities Act to create more national monuments. The administration’s America the Beautiful initiative aims to protect and preserve at least 30 percent of US lands and waters by 2030.
“These times call for bold action. And the planet, places, and people we love deserve nothing less,” he said.
Both groups had sued the Trump administration during its first term. So, did the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, which said that America “must seize” the economic opportunity to lead.
“We are going to do everything we can to keep progress moving outside of Washington so the momentum is irreversible,” said President Manish Bapna. “That means pushing progress forward at the state level, local level, in the private sector and public more broadly — to uphold the spirit of the international agreements and to keep the U.S. commitments to the world, even without leadership in the White House.”
