Biden says ‘We can’t wait any longer’ to act on the climate crisis

At an event at the White House on Wednesday, President Biden called climate change an existential threat and said “It’s time to act.”

Video Transcript

PRESIDENT JOSEPH R. BIDEN: Today is climate day at the White House, which means that today is jobs day at the White House. We're talking about American innovation, American products, and American labor, and we're talking about the health of our families and cleaner water, cleaner air, and cleaner communities. We're talking about national security and American leading the world in a clean energy future.

It's a future of enormous hope and opportunity, and it's about coming to the moment to deal with this maximum threat that's now facing us on climate change with a greater sense of urgency. In my view, we've already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis. We can't wait any longer. We see it with our own eyes, and we feel it. We know it in our bones. And it's time to act.

And I might note parenthetically, if you noticed, the attitude of the American people toward greater emphasis on focusing on climate change and doing something about it has increased across the board, Democrat, Republican, independent. That's why I'm signing today an executive order to supercharge our administration's ambitious plan to confront the existential threat of climate change. And it is an existential threat.