Biden’s climate executive actions will have marginal effect without legislation

US President takes on ‘clear and present danger’, but Congress holds real power

- Nirmal Ghosh

US President Joe Biden, seeing his climate change agenda melting away, on Wednesday used a visit to a decommissioned coal-fired power plant to announce a series of executive actions, including support for offshore wind energy and US$2.3 billion (S$3.2 billion) in funds for building resilient infrastructure.

But experts say that in the absence of legislation, the effect on larger climate goals will be marginal.

This comes as much of Europe and the United States suffer a scorching heatwave. In the US, around 100 million people in 28 states mostly across the south-west were under excessive heat warnings on Wednesday. The city of Austin, the capital of Texas, reached more than 38 deg C for the 40th straight day; the previous record for consecutive days of such heat, set in 2011, was 27.

It also came as key conservative Democratic Party Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia walked away last week from negotiations over an energy and climate spending package, effectively killing the legislation.

Mr Manchin said the package – which had been under negotiation for 18 months, and among other things contained incentives for wind and solar energy, hydrogen and electric vehicles – would further fuel inflation, which breached 9 per cent last month.