- Bayern hit nine, Real Madrid and Liverpool win as new Champions League kicks off
- Author John Grisham joins bid to save Texas death row inmate
- Venezuela arrests fourth American over alleged 'plot' against Maduro
- 'Happy' Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- Man Utd hit Barnsley for seven in League Cup rout
- Dolphins quarterback Tagovailoa facing concussion layoff
- Stylish Liverpool strut past Milan in confident Champions league opener
- Kane scores four as Bayern put nine past Zagreb in the Champions League
- Mbappe strikes on Madrid Champions League debut win over Stuttgart
- More than 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Harris calls Trump as assassination scare sparks tensions
- Dow edges down from record as some eye a smaller Fed rate cut
- Sommer vows Inter will 'defend with all we have' to stop Haaland
- Report links meatpacking companies to 'war on nature' in Brazil
- Bolivian ex-leader Morales, backers set out on weeklong protest march
- Smith grateful to McCullum for launching his England career
- Arizona to ask court to rule on voting rights
- Villa make perfect start on Champions League return after 41-year absence
- Israeli supply chain infiltration likely behind Hezbollah pager blasts: analysts
- Rodgers backs Celtic to be 'really competitive' in Champions League
- Spacewalk an 'emotional experience' for private astronauts
- Storm Boris toll rises to 22 in central Europe
- Nine dead, 2,800 wounded as Lebanon's Hezbollah hit by pager blasts
- Boeing, union resume talks as strike empties Seattle plants
- Over 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies
- Australia's Zampa accepts Ashes chances remote as 100th ODI looms
- UN General Assembly debates call for end to Israeli occupation
- Marseille complete signing of French international Rabiot
- Easterby to fill in as Ireland coach while Farrell is with the Lions
- Hezbollah in Lebanon hit by wave of deadly pager blasts
- Postecoglou taken aback by criticism of his second season success claim
- US, European stocks rise on retail sales, rate cut expectations
- Fendi sees Roaring 20s at Milan Fashion Week in challenging times
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr part ways with coach Castro
- Scottish government backs Glasgow to stage troubled 2026 Commonwealth Games
- Storm Boris toll rises to 21 in central Europe
- Instagram, under pressure, tightens protection for teens
- Inflation slows again in Canada to 2%
- US, European stocks rise on eve of Fed rate decision
- EU bans Algerian spread toasted on social media
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs charged with racketeering, sex trafficking
- Trump returns to campaign trail after assassination scare
- Activist urges repatriation of Native Americans dead in Paris 'human zoo'
- US retail sales see slight rise, beating expectations
- US Fed begins two-day meeting set to end with rate cut
- Exploding Hezbollah pagers wound hundreds across Lebanon
- Runners-up Yokohama thrashed 7-3 in AFC Champions League goal fest
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs to plead not guilty to racketeering, sex trafficking
- Jihadist group claims rare attack on Mali capital
- 'I am a rapist,' Frenchman tells trial over mass rape of wife
Why Biden's climate agenda has faltered
President Joe Biden ran for office on a pledge to tackle the global climate crisis.
Instead, he has seen his legislative ambitions defeated by Congress, the Supreme Court has delivered a hammer blow to the federal government's ability to regulate greenhouse gasses, and the Ukraine crisis has been a boon for fossil fuels.
As the Democrat is poised to announce a series of new executive measures, including additional funding to help protect communities from extreme heat and boosting wind production, here is an overview of his term so far.
- What's at stake -
Shortly after taking office, Biden announced he was targeting a 50-52 percent reduction from 2005 levels in US economy-wide net greenhouse gas pollution in 2030, before achieving net zero in 2050, as part of the country's Paris Agreement goals.
"Biden has said he thinks that climate change is the existential issue of our time," and has been more emphatic than any of his predecessors including Barack Obama, Paul Bledsoe of the Progressive Policy Institute told AFP.
The president has framed the issue as key to the economic and national security of the United States, as well as public safety -- and climate scientists are sounding the alarm now more than ever.
"I think that more and more people are realizing that we're living through what could eventually cause us to lose everything in terms of habitability and everything that we value in life," climate scientist Peter Kalmus told AFP.
Europe's punishing heatwave serves as a timely reminder that warming won't be an issue confined to the Global South, but instead threatens civilization as we know it, he added.
- Congress, the Supreme Court, and Ukraine -
The main legislative plank of Biden's agenda was to have been the Build Back Better bill, which would have plowed $550 billion into the clean energy and climate businesses -- much coming from tax credits and incentives.
That effort is now in tatters after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, a fossil fuel booster who wields outsized power in the evenly split Senate, walked away last week from the bill that he'd promised to back.
At the end of June, the conservative supermajority Supreme Court found that the federal Environmental Protection Agency cannot issue broad limits on greenhouse gasses, such as cap-and-trade schemes, without Congressional approval.
"So we're on two strikes," said Bledsoe, who served as a climate aide to former president Bill Clinton.
What's more, the oil industry has pushed for more drilling in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, casting the issue as one of energy security.
A recent analysis by the Institute for Energy Research said that Biden's government picked up the pace of drilling permits on public land from March onward "to mollify the political pressure rising along with pump prices."
Biden had vowed to end new drilling on public lands, but his "pause" was overturned by a Trump-appointed judge in 2021.
On the other hand, there have been some partial wins: the administration has promulgated tighter emissions standards for vehicles, and toughened regulations on super-polluting methane emissions, said Bledsoe.
The bipartisan infrastructure law, passed last November, also contained some climate provisions, including $7.5 billion for a nationwide network of electric vehicle chargers and investments in carbon capture and hydrogen technologies.
- What's next? -
But without the big ticket items, the United States is falling far short of its goals.
The Rhodium Group, an independent research firm, finds that "as of June 2022, we find that the US is on track to reduce emissions 24 percent to 35 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 absent any additional policy action."
The White House has not ruled out declaring a "climate emergency," which would grant Biden additional policy powers, but given a hostile judiciary, this would likely be subject to legal challenge.
Bledsoe said to achieve real change, Biden should instead push for broad public backing.
"Democrats should make popular consumer clean energy tax breaks a key election issue to gain seats in Congress, and pass the bill in January 2023."
O.M.Souza--AMWN