Joe Biden faces increasing pressure over climate agenda

US President Joe Biden is looking to implement policies that could address the growing threat of climate change. As Congress continues its debate on his infrastructure proposals, Biden is also facing increasing pressure from climate activists over his agenda.

The Guardian reports that Biden is facing increasing pressure from climate activists, urging him to act as soon as possible in enacting measures that could address and fight climate change. The US leader’s allies have also warned that they are running out of time both in a political and scientific sense for the country to implement measures to curb carbon emissions while urging other countries to do the same. Scientists have warned that a failure to take immediate action would lead to irreversible repercussions on the planet.

Climate provisions are included in the Democrat-led $3.5 trillion social infrastructure package. However, Democrats in Congress are still struggling to get every single member of their party to support the proposal, as two Senators stand in the way of the massive proposal from passing the evenly divided upper chamber. This also follows Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to get a vote on the bill in time for the UN climate talks in Scotland this month.

Should Congress fail to pass the proposal with climate provisions, it would pose a challenge for the US to convince other countries such as China to present their own strategy in cutting down emissions to curb climate change.

“They will look ridiculous if they show up with nothing,” said Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “It would be bad for US leadership, bad for the talks, and disastrous for the climate. Just disastrous.”

“The vast majority of Senate Democrats understand this is our last chance to act,” added Whitehouse.

In other news, the Biden administration has sought to ask the Supreme Court to block a near-total abortion ban that was signed into law in Texas. This follows the ruling of a lower court to reinstate the law that would ban the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, when most women may not even realize that they are pregnant.

The DOJ said in a filing that the lower court’s action “enables Texas’s ongoing nullification of this court’s precedents and its’ citizens’ constitutional rights.”