His first day in office, Biden signed 17 executive orders, one of them notably being the recommitment to the Paris Climate Agreement from the U.S. This landmark agreement was first adopted in late 2015 by nearly every country, and was a huge milestone of Obama's presidency. The goal of this agreement was to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit the increase of global temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius.
However, a year later during Trump's campaign, he promised to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement and announced it again the following year after he was elected. Fortunately, the terms of the agreement make it so that the U.S. could not formally exit until Nov. 4, 2020. However, this does not discount the over 100 other environment policies that the Trump Administration rolled back.
President Biden has of course, recognized the gravity of Trump's actions and has been fast at working trying to fix Trump's previous policies. With the largest team of climate change experts ever brought in the White House and a very firm stance on climate change, President Biden is expected to take a lot more action on climate change soon. As soon as next Wednesday, "Biden plans to sign an executive order elevating climate in domestic and national security policy; direct 'science and evidence based decision-making' in federal agencies; reestablish the Presidential Council of Advisers on Science and Technology and announce that U.S. data that will help underpin the Climate Leadership Summit that Biden will host in Washington in late April."
Biden's environmental agenda on his first day has widely surpassed that of any other president, but these policies will take a lot of time and commitment to complete. The U.S. has a lot of catching up to do in the 4 years Trump was president, but with a strong support system and the Democrats taking control of the House and Senate, I think Biden will be able to not only tackle this issue, but also a lot of other important ones during his presidency.
7 comments:
Through these executive orders, I think Biden has demonstrated that he recognizes the urgency of the challenges we currently face, and I think this comes as a great comfort for people across the nation after having a president that denied the true impact of climate change, didn’t acknowledge the extent of the loss suffered in the pandemic, and so on. From the main “policy” points Biden noted in his inaugural address, including climate change, the pandemic, and foreign relations, to name a few, it is clear that he is already taking action to switch directions and hold the U.S. accountable for its health and its relationships. Echoing the final sentiments of his speech, I think these are important steps towards building more sustainable practices and actually leaving a land, nation, world that the future generations can hope to live and thrive in. The reality is that climate change and global warming are the consequences of human activity and human industry, and so it is up to us to evolve our practices rather than waiting until the problems are too great to ignore—by then, surely, it will be too late.
I think this is a promising sign for both the American people and for the world that America is rejoining the world effort to help fight climate change. The executive orders passed last night does show how dedicated the Biden administration is to reverse the damage the Trump administration has done on climate policy and other policies across the board. As stated in Brian's blog post this climate team that Biden has formed is the largest in history in the White House which is a great change from the previous administration who believed climate change was a hoax and only aimed to put in place more liberal ideals and take away jobs from coal workers and so on. While it is a step in the right direction to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement it was only Biden's first night as president. We can only hope to see that he continues to fight for the future of the youth of America with more policies to limit the amount of fossil fuels entering the atmosphere. It will be interesting to how Biden plans to enact his plan from the foundation to have America purely run on clean energy in 2050.
First and foremost, I wholeheartedly agree that the actions president Biden has taken of numerous executive orders to roll back much of the changes Trump made during his presidency will move our nation and the world in the right direction. From rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement to devoting more funding/resources towards impoverished communities during the pandemic some of these rollbacks seem like no brainers of what a president should be doing. However, the sheer amount of orders Biden has done in the first day of his presidency, not only questions the amount of presidential power granted through executive orders but will also pave the way for other presidents in the future to potentially abuse their executive orders. Although executive orders can be stricken down if deemed unconstitutional, offering some sort of protection, the amount that Biden has used on just his first day of office does, to me, warrant some concern. Although, I understand and agree that the executive orders he used will promote much of the social and environmental welfare of the country, one does have to ask if issuing 17 on just the first day of office could be seen as very overwhelming. Although president Biden does have much to fix fast during his presidency and executive orders are the most efficient way to carry out his agenda quickly and efficiently. This excessive use of them could lead to future presidents considering this as the norm and use large amounts of executive orders in short periods of time for not such beneficial causes. Overall, I do not heavily criticize Biden’s actions, but rather just want to point out the potential abuse of these executives' actions in the future.
Hopefully, Biden pushes other countries within the Paris Accord to actually follow their goals instead of setting arbitrary standards to look good only to completely ignore them; this was one of the many criticisms of the Paris Accord and the reason cited for pulling out of it in the first place. Even though practically every country in the world has signed it, almost none of them, especially the countries who we praise so much for their supposed role in promoting "green" energy such as China (who has actually built many new power plants and have risen in emissions), has met the emission standards that was set in the Paris Accord. Biden also has to consider the economical damage (which he will likely completely ignore) that may be done by strict environmental policies, especially in a time when jobs are harder to come by during these lockdowns. Unless countries magically decide to start lowering their emissions, Biden's re-entering into the Paris Accord will mean little in regards to the grand scheme of things.
Like Laurent has pointed out, I am a bit worried about what kind of precedent Trump and now Biden may be setting for future presidents. The first 23 presidents issued a total of 937 executive orders, whereas the later 22 presidents (and now Joe Biden with his first 9 executive orders) had a total of 14670 executive orders. It might be understandable why there were so many executive orders in recent times due to many crises and emergencies that have emerged. Additionally, with Trump’s rollback on Obama’s environmental policies and now Biden’s supposed rollback on Trump’s rollbacks, is it possible that this sets a precedent for future presidents? To rollback the prior president’s policies if they are from the opposing party?
Again, Joe Biden is taking advantage of their electoral mandate to advance their policies in the first 100 days of his administration. With Joe Biden already rolling out 9 executive orders just a couple of days after his inauguration, there seems to be a whole lot more agenda-pushing coming in the next couple of months.
https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/executive-orders
Having a president that cares about the environment is refreshing. So many, like Trump, argue that climate change is a hoax because they cannot directly feel its effects. However, if these people put in the research necessary to determine if this were actually true, they'd understand how pressing the matter is. Aside from this, I believe Biden is taking the right first steps as president; he is immediately taking action on issues he's passionate about. This presents him as a reliable person because he is following through with the promises he made during campaigns. As someone who understands the importance of climate reform, I am especially grateful that he is taking the steps necessary to achieve this. While not every president is perfect, I respect those who take action and fight against global concerns. I also respect when their actions are driven by research rather than bias or a limited perspective.
Biden has taken his presidential election in stride, and it's great to witness. By ignoring that people were trying to discredit his fair victory and passing 17 executive orders on his first day in office, President Joe Biden has shown that he plans to make change, and he won’t be discouraged. He made it clear throughout his campaign the number of things he planned to roll back from the Trump Administration. The Paris Climate Agreement is a crucial step in the survival of our entire world, and it’s incredible that he made it such a priority to rejoin. He is not messing around, but firmly showing that he wants to take the right steps to fix the rapidly growing problems we are facing, most notably climate change and global warming.
Post a Comment