Facebook Instagram Twitter YouTube

Biden Won’t Stop Climate Change

Many hoped that President Biden would be America’s first “climate president,” but there’s no such thing.

M. Carlstad

May 9, 2023
Facebook Twitter Share
Biden speaking at a podium at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.
Image: Yves Herman/AP

President Biden laced his 2020 presidential campaign with rhetoric and promises about addressing climate change, drawing some to wonder if he could be America’s first “climate president.” More than two years in, the reality of his term is a letdown for those who hung their hopes on this label. With the official announcement that he’ll run for office again in 2024, it’s time to examine why “lesser evil” Biden and his flimsy platform represent nothing more than a green dream.

As an example, Biden’s administration has now signed off on more gas and oil drilling permits than Trump had at the same point in his term — surpassing Trump by a few hundred at the two-year mark. Two of Biden’s recent moves for the fossil fuel industry — the approval of the Willow project in Alaska and the auctioning of drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico — confirm that the president will never fulfill his climate promises.

The recently approved Willow project, proposed by ConocoPhillips, plans for three drilling sites in Alaska’s Western Arctic, also known as the National Petroleum Reserve (so much for Biden’s declaration of “no more drilling on federal lands, period”). ConocoPhillips aims to extract an estimated 180,000 barrels of oil per day at peak production, which, when burned, would emit hundreds of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide over the project’s 30-year lifetime.

Indigenous groups and environmental organizations in Alaska have long opposed the Willow project, citing a familiar but disturbing list of environmental and social issues that it would create. Additionally, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress, the predicted emissions from this project will erase any progress from Biden’s other emission-reduction measures.

In the face of valid and obvious issues like these, our climate president moved ahead with this historic extraction project.

Weeks after approving Willow, the Biden administration opened up millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico to be auctioned off to oil and gas companies. The likes of Chevron and ExxonMobil walked away with 1.6 million acres of U.S.-owned waters for their use. The same week, report findings came out showing that drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is already creating emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas, that are higher than recent estimates.

The Willow project and Gulf of Mexico permits came less than two months after a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, released a toxic cloud of vinyl chloride that killed livestock and wildlife, and forced residents to evacuate. Biden himself helped bring about this chemical disaster by blocking railroad workers from striking for safer staffing and working conditions late last year.

While the fossil fuel industry continues to thrive in U.S. territory, Biden passionately pursues the development and maintenance of the U.S. military, an imperialist death machine that emits as much greenhouse gas as a medium-sized country. The Pentagon doesn’t report emissions from its activities, but we know that it emits millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide year after year, thanks to its air strikes, military bases, transporting of various deadly weapons, and tens of thousands of Humvees, which get four to eight miles per gallon. This year, Biden’s latest budget proposal for the Department of Defense requests $842 billion with a focus on the “growing multi-domain threat” of China, as well as on Russia and its invasion of Ukraine. The proposal makes passing mention of increasing fuel efficiency but otherwise approaches climate change not as a life-ruining disaster, but as a security threat that the military must prepare for. This reflects Biden and the Pentagon’s contradictory attitude toward climate change: we must prepare for the climate crisis, which is partly caused by the U.S. military, by giving billions to the U.S. military.

Biden’s dishonest stance on climate is emphasized by his silence on crucial, ongoing climate struggles. The movement against Cop City in Atlanta escalated in January, when a Georgia state trooper shot a land defender 57 times in the forest. When Biden gave his State of the Union speech a few weeks later, he made predictably defensive, almost motherly comments about the police, naturally avoiding the topic of Tortuguita’s murder and the police training facility that would annihilate one of Atlanta’s most important ecological sites.

Biden also stays silent the legal battles between Chevron and environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, which have involved dozens of Chevron’s lawyers invading and attempting to ruin Donziger’s life and career — all because he won a lawsuit against Chevron for contaminating the Ecuadoran Amazon with millions of gallons of crude oil and polluted water. Last year, over a hundred environmental and human rights organizations called on Biden to pardon Donziger from an unfair conviction that had him on house arrest indefinitely, which Biden ignored.

So, why is the first so-called climate president breaking his own campaign promises? In assessing his failures, we have to keep in mind that Biden couldn’t manage the climate crisis even if he wanted to. He is a member of the Democratic Party, which has always served, and always will serve, the capitalist system. And in his current position as the most powerful person in this system, Biden is more beholden to maintaining U.S. power on a global scale (an increasingly difficult task) than practically anyone else. This is evident in his approach to other issues as well: in addition to greenlighting the fossil fuel projects that the capitalist economy thrives on in the U.S. and elsewhere, he has advocated for an increase in “border security” on the U.S.-Mexico border, and is now sending 1,500 military troops there in preparation for an increased number of migrants attempting to enter the U.S.

Since the Democratic Party paints itself as in favor of social justice, Biden may throw us a bone or make an empty gesture from time to time — such as this Earth Day’s executive order focused on environmental justice, or his administration’s ineffective proposed changes to Title IX.

Disingenuous moves like this do not change the fact that capitalism is a system of eternal growth, exploitation, and theft. There is no solution to the existential threat of climate change when this system still stands.

Betrayals like the Willow project and the East Palestine train disaster, and the capitalist nature of our government and current political parties, tell us that there is no such thing as a climate president. Biden answers to capitalists and the market, which demand fossil fuel for burning and ever-increasing profit margins. Ultimately, voting him in as the “lesser evil” compared to Trump has meant a continuation of the same unfair policies and careless approach to the climate crisis, with more complicity from the public. Only the working class, united with land protectors and climate advocates unwaveringly against the ruling class, can avert the worst of the crisis.

Facebook Twitter Share

Guest Posts

University of Michigan campus

Campus Cops Intimidate Grad Workers in Ann Arbor, Michigan

We publish here a statement by the Graduate Employees' Organization detailing and condemning the repressive tactics of the University of Michigan administration in response to the strength and resilience of striking grad workers.

Left Voice

June 1, 2023
The outside of First Republic Bank showing the main sign.

First Republic Bank: The Case for Public Ownership

The collapse of First Republic Bank is the latest chapter in the rolling banking crisis in the US. It demonstrates the case for public ownership of the banking system.

Michael Roberts

May 3, 2023
Sami protesters in Norway protest the construction of wind turbines on their land.

Norway: Thousands of Youth Demonstrated against “Green Colonialism”

From the end of February to the beginning of March, over a thousand youth protested against the construction of wind turbines on Sami land. This movement represents the birth of a militant, Indigenous-led environmentalist movement.

Matthew Walters

May 1, 2023

Striking Workers at the University of Michigan Are Building Powerful Solidarity

University of Michigan graduate students have been on strike for one month. While these workers have faced harsh conditions, the broad connections and class-consciousness they are developing are worth celebrating.

Ryan McCarty

April 29, 2023

MOST RECENT

Image by the Economist, Satoshi Kimbayashi

The Debt Ceiling Agreement is an Attack on the Working Class and on the Planet

Joe Biden and Kevin McCarthy’s deal to raise the debt ceiling is a handout to the military industrial complex and an attack on the working class and the planet. Rather than just raising the debt ceiling, a relatively standard practice that allows the U.S. to pay the bills for spending that already happened, this debt ceiling deal caps discretionary spending on everything but “defense” and fast-tracks the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Image in The Stand

SCOTUS v. Labor Movement: The Court Rules Against Workers

The Supreme Court issued a ruling which aims to weaken strikes. It is no coincidence that this comes at a time when unions have massive support among the general population. The labor movement must fight back against the state's attacks on our collective power.

Luigi Morris

June 3, 2023

This Pride Month, There is Hope In Fighting Back. Pride is in the Streets.

Pride is in the streets. It is the history of our community, it is the history of our struggle. Let us do them honor.

Ezra Brain

June 2, 2023
A rainbow display at the supermarket Target during Pride Month 2022.

Target Doesn’t Care about LGBTQ+ People

At Target and Anheuser-Busch, policies of inclusion and diversity have clashed with profit ambitions.

Pablo Herón

June 2, 2023