President Joe Biden apologized to world leaders this week for the decision by former President Donald Trump to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord, which Biden has since rejoined. Trump, like other Republicans, has consistently downplayed the threat of climate change, even as climate change-related disasters unfold around the country and world.
Biden made his remarks on the matter at a United Nations-tied summit on climate issues. As Biden put it:
‘I guess I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact the United States in the last administration pulled out of the Paris accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit.’
Biden added as follows:
‘The United States, if I have anything to do with it, will do our part. Our success in my view hinges on our collective commitment to ramping up our momentum and strengthening our climate ambition.’
Biden added at another point that there’s “no more time to hang back or sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves. This is the challenge of our collective lifetimes. The existential threat to human existence as we know it.” Tell that to Republicans, who seem far more interested in focusing on nonsensical “culture war” issues instead of engaging with matters in which substantively constructive developments can be obtained for the American people. Trump explicitly said in a recent public statement that a chief concern of public figures should be dealing with the supposed election-rigging of 2020 — not fighting hunger, or lifting people out of poverty, or getting unhoused people into homes. Nope — Trump’s focused on imaginary election-rigging and demands the same of those who hope to be acolytes. It’s a disgrace.
In contrast, Democrats have included spending to combat climate change in the sweeping social spending proposal that’s currently under development on Capitol Hill and could pass in coming weeks.
