Holding Biden Accountable on Climate

With a sigh of relief, we now know that Joe Biden will be entering office in January as the 46th President of the United States, with Kamala Harris as Vice President. It’s no secret that the Trump administration has been a disaster to global and domestic climate policy in the past four years, by rolling back over 100 EPA protections, subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, and leaving the Paris Climate Accord. The U.S. has ceased to be a leader on the world stage, and it’s Biden’s job to bring America back to leading the fight against the imminent and looming threat of climate change.

Biden has not incorporated all of the demands of the progressive Green New Deal in his climate plan, but he has proposed a $2 trillion plan that combines economic relief and growth post-pandemic. This plan will also refocus our economy on green energy, rather than fossil fuels. While this is by far the most progressive climate plan ever taken on by an incoming president, he has stated clearly that he will not ban fracking and his plan to become carbon neutral by 2050 is lacking in clear targets along the way. Although he insists that he will listen to experts, no climate scientist would recommend the continuation of destructive fracking. Our generation knows better than any that bold climate change policy should be non-negotiable; our world and our future is at stake. So, how do we push Biden to go bolder with his climate policy and how do we hold him accountable for what he has pledged to do?

If Joe Biden is known for anything, he is known to listen. He may not agree or take the advice, but he is at least open to progressive conversations. Already, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Sunrise Movement aided in the creation of his climate policy, showing that he is open to being pushed further than the more moderate positions he ran on in the primary. In the upcoming weeks and months, Joe Biden will be announcing his cabinet. We need progressive leaders in cabinet positions to hold Biden accountable, and also to ensure that politics do not go back to the usual, without true change for what matters. We cannot afford bipartisan compromise with the climate-denying Republican Party to pass meager climate reforms, like a band-aid over a bullet wound. This brings us to the Senate.

I talked to Grace Tedder, CEO and Founder and Hub Coordinator of Sunrise St. Louis, and she laid out Sunrise’s national strategy. The first part of this strategy is for what happens before Biden comes into office. This includes a Climate Mandate, which focuses on what Biden can do just by executive order, even without the Senate. Next, they are focusing on Biden’s cabinet picks, and have endorsements for cabinet members that are “more representative of the American people, without ties to the Fossil Fuel industry, and have a bold vision for the massive policy changes that we need to pass legislation on the massive scale we need to fight Climate Change.” These endorsements include well-known progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren, as well as U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib.

The major disappointment of election week for Democrats was the failure to gain a majority of seats in the Senate. Inaccurate polling had Democratic challengers such as Theresa Greenfield and Sara Gideon up by seven points against their respective incumbents that week, leading to false hope. However, there are still two seats undetermined in Georgia that will go to a run-off: Warnock (D) vs. Loeffler (R) and Ossof (D) vs. Perdue (R). If Democrats can manage to organize well in Georgia and get record-high numbers of turnout by Black voters in urban centers like Atlanta, it is possible to win these seats. Georgia turned blue for the presidential election, and with enough volunteering and safe virtual organizing, it can go blue again. These seats will make it much easier to pass any progressive climate policy that would gain significant resistance in a Mitch McConnell-led Senate Majority. If you want to get involved in Georgia, you can check out https://fairfight.com/join-our-fight/ .

And of course, if we are not happy with what we are seeing, we take to the streets. Protests work, as clearly evidenced by the results of the Black Lives Matter movement. After June, voter registrations skyrocketed for Democrats, leading to the record turnout that brought Joe Biden to a presidential win. Grassroots climate organizations like the Sunrise Movement focus on progressive climate justice policy and organize protests and sit-ins such as these. On what the role of Sunrise St. Louis plays in the national strategy, Grace Tedder said: “What we can do in addition to building a public narrative and public support for progressive action, is direct action like sit-ins to amplify and draw light to the issues we are pushing for. Now we have Cori Bush, our Green New Deal champion. There is a lot of opportunity for collaboration and strategizing, learning how we can leverage youth activists in Sunrise, as people who can tell this moral imperative of our issues, with Representative Cori Bush, who is now going to be in the halls of Congress.

If you want to get involved locally to make a community impact towards climate action, Grace recommends checking out local organizations and getting involved with other people. Sometimes the biggest impact you can have is hyperlocal. “You and your community have the most in common and can work with other communities for a broader impact. Find what feels right and what fits for you.”

Maeve McFadden ’24 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at m.c.mcfadden@wustl.edu.