By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams
The Congressional Progressive Caucus “is absolutely right that President Biden should declare it so we can build the energy security that only renewable energy can bring,” said one climate advocate.
Grassroots climate advocates praised the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Thursday for pushing President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to declare a national climate emergency, a move that would unlock an array of specific tools needed to combat planetary warming.
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“The Biden administration talks big about confronting the climate crisis, pandemic, and economic crisis, but has expanded fossil fuel extraction in the U.S. and failed to deliver on critical climate and social investments in his first year,” Adrien Salazar, policy director at the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, said in a statement.
“President Biden still has a chance to mobilize a historic response to meet the scale of today’s overlapping crises,” Salazar added. “He must use the executive powers at his disposal to declare a climate emergency, ban fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and waters, and deliver on all the promises he has made to stand up for Black, Indigenous, communities of color, and working-class people.”