Biden to delay any potential climate emergency declaration after initial reports

On Monday night, the Washington Post reported that President Joe Biden could declare a national climate emergency as soon as this week following stalled talks in Congress.

But on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported that Mr Biden apparently does not plan to do so during a visit to Massachusetts on Wednesday, in which he plans to speak about the climate crisis.

This news comes just days after Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, told party leaders that he won’t support the Democrats’ attempt to push through an economic package this month, which would include billions to fight the climate crisis.

Exactly what the President will speak about during his trip to Massachusetts, including any potential announcements, are not yet clear, AP says.

If he chose to, Mr Biden could invoke the emergency to provide his administration with the power to decrease carbon emissions and produce more clean energy. By declaring a national emergency, the President can open up a variety of powers without input from Congress.

Three people familiar with the possible measure spoke to The Washington Post.

Two of them said that they expect Mr Biden to also announce further measures to decrease emissions but the timing and extent of any announcement remain under deliberation.

“The president made clear that if the Senate doesn’t act to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, he will,” an anonymous White House official told the paper. “We are considering all options and no decision has been made.”

The Indepedent has contacted representatives from the White House and Senator Manchin’s office for comment.

Representative Alexandrio Ocasio-Cortez of New York told The Independent that declaring a climate emergency would be an “essential step” and criticized Senator Manchin.

“Manchin has paused all action for the United States to act on climate for the last four years,” she said.

“So I don’t think he has any authority to speak on climate for the rest of our term here.””

Some environmentalists immediately praised the initial reports of a potential emergency declaration.

“A historic climate emergency declaration is exactly what we need from Biden to match the scale and urgency of this crisis,” said Jean Su from the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity, via a statement.

“By unlocking crucial climate powers, Biden can put Manchin’s gaslighting behind us and get busy getting us off fossil fuels and building the renewable-energy powerhouse we desperately need,” she added.

Pressure has been building on the President to take action regarding the climate crisis since the news broke on Senator Manchin late last week. On Monday, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Jeff Merkeley of Oregon, both Democrats, asked Mr Biden to declare a climate emergency, reports Reuters.

Last week on Twitter, Senator Whitehouse had said “With legislative climate options now closed, it’s now time for executive Beast Mode.”

Currently, parts of Europe and the US are broiling in heat waves and wildfires are raging around the world.

In the UK, temperatures have fallen one by one – including the country’s first documented instance of reaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit). And down in Portugal, Spain and France, fires were engulfing the countryside.

Temperatures in Texas, Oklahoma and nearby areas this week are expected to reach above 100F (38C) every day this week, as millions of acres burn nationwide during an unusually powerful wildfire season.

These are just the latest hints at what the climate crisis may bring. As the world has dumped billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – in large part from the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels like oil and natural gas – the planet has started to warm beyond average 19th century temperatures.

And as global temperatures rise, parts of the world will likely see far more heatwaves, droughts, wildfires and intense storms, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a leading authority on climate science.

Already, parts of the world have started to experience the consequences of those changes – including flooding, displacement, water scarcity, agricultural declines and health issues, the IPCC says. As warming continues, those trends will likely spread and worsen.

So far, the world has warmed around 1.2C above 19th century temperatures. To keep warming limited to around 1.5C, one of the goals of the international Paris Agreement, emissions would need start drastically declining within the next three years, the IPCC reported a few months ago.

The US is on pace to reduce its emissions – but according to a recent report, is falling far short of the progress necessary to reduce emissions 50 per cent compared to 2005 levels by 2030, a goal President Biden set last year.

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