Biden Is Dedicating Billions To Address Climate Change. Does It Go Far Enough?

Enbridge Line 3 — Opponents of Enbridge Energy's proposal to replace its aging Line 3 crude oil pipeline across northern Minnesota demonstrate in St. Paul, Minn.

Hannah Uebele is a producer for Under the Radar with Callie Crossley and previously worked as associate producer for Boston Public Radio. She graduated from Tufts University with a B.S. in English and Environmental Studies. She's a proud Delawarean but has found herself saying "wicked" more and more often, so the Bostonian metamorphosis is well underway.Contact: hannah_uebele@wgbh.org

April 01, 2021

Updated August 07, 2023

President Joe Biden released a $2 trillion infrastructure plan on Wednesday that includes billions of dollars to address climate change. If passed, part of the funds would be spent to build a national electric vehicle charging system, give tax incentives for electric vehicle buyers and update the country’s electric grid to prevent outages during climate disasters.

Climate activist and writer Bill McKibben spoke to Boston Public Radio on Thursday about Biden's efforts to curb the country's greenhouse gas emissions.

"In three months, we've gone from an administration that thought climate change was a hoax to one that wants to spend a lot of money to fix it," he said. "Those are the kind of dollar numbers that the federal government only spends on things [for war]. And so for them to spend it on things like solar panels and electric vehicle charging stations is terrific."

That said, the tragedy of climate change is that we're always behind, McKibben said: "One of the ways we'll know how successful this [Biden plan] will have been in the future is if it shifted the balance of power between fossil fuels and renewables."

Some activists say Biden's plan doesn't go far enough to address climate change. McKibben thinks the perfect complement to it would be if the Biden administration would stand up to ongoing pipeline battles. Biden put an end to the Keystone XL Pipeline on his first day in office by revoking its permit. But the Enbridge Line 3 crude oil pipeline that goes through Minnesota is just as bad, McKibben said.

"People are arrested every day there, mostly Native Americans, trying to stop it," he said.

Bill McKibben is a contributing writer for The New Yorker, a founder of the advocacy group 350.org and the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in environmental studies at Middlebury College. He also writes The Climate Crisis, The New Yorker’s environmental newsletter. His latest book is “Falter: Has The Human Game Begun To Play Itself Out?”