Appropriately enough, the 46th President of the United States of America has rushed in where his predecessor was loath to tread. On Thursday, Joe Biden effected a critical forward movement on the climate and environment by signing a series of executive orders to address climate change. His praxis envisages a fresh ban on certain forms of drilling for energy.

The orders aim to freeze new oil and gas leases on public lands and double offshore wind-produced energy by 2030. Of course, certain sectors of the oil and gas  industry are expected to mount stout resistance; yet altogether both developed and developing nations must concede that the changes represent a dramatic departure from the largely unacceptable, if unilateral stance of Donald Trump, who had cut environmental safeguards.

Advertisement

“Today is climate day at the White House,” said President Biden almost with a tinge of euphoria. Yet he hastened to add realistically that “we have already waited too long, and we can’t wait any longer.” This sure is a critical statement not the least because of the virtual stagnation over the past four years.

In a message to the nation, Mr Biden said America “must lead” a global response to the climate change crisis. “Just like we need a unified national response to Covid-19, we desperately need a unified national response to the climate crisis because there is a climate crisis,” he said.

And then the caveat implicitly addressed to the comity of nations, specifically that neither challenge could be met by the US alone. Markedly, the executive orders seek to put in place a White House office of domestic climate policy. A summit of leaders will be held on Earth Day in April.

It is fervently to be hoped that Biden’s America will not go off at a tangent from the high table, as it did during the Trump dispensation. Climate change, under Mr Biden’s plan of action, will become both a “national security” and “foreign policy” priority.

Additionally, the President will ask the US director of national intelligence to prepare an intelligence report on the security implications of climate change. He has adopted a seemingly comprehensive approach to effect a fruitful transition to a cleaner world, which belongs to the Earth. The President is using his powers to make climate change a central issue of his administration.

And yet the executive orders and memorandum ~ which cannot go as far as Congressional legislation in combating climate change ~ can be undone by future Presidents, as he is currently doing to Mr Trump. Yet a noble beginning has been initiated after four years of ignoble degradation of the environment, indeed ever since Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017. President Joe Biden’s initiative deserves to be welcomed the world over. Very probably, it will.