Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez aim to require Biden to declare climate emergency

Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders and Democratic Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Earl Blumenauer have introduced legislation that would require President Joe Biden to declare a national emergency on climate change.

The lawmakers introduced the proposal on Thursday that would give Biden more power to deal with the issue of climate change, which was seriously ignored by former President Donald Trump.

Trump had labeled climate change a hoax, defying widening international support for the Paris agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions. He argued that the concept of global warming had been “created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive.”

In June 2017, Trump announced that he was pulling out of the 2015 global agreement to fight climate change, characterizing the decision as "a reassertion of American sovereignty."

The move drew rebuke from Democrats at home and world leaders who had pressed Trump not to abandon the 197-nation accord. He argued that remaining in the deal would hurt the US economy.

The legislation on Thursday came after Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested that President Biden could declare a climate emergency in order to take additional actions against global warming using emergency powers.

The legislation cites both warming temperatures and a UN statement which calls for “far-reaching, multilevel and cross-sectoral climate mitigation” to prevent climate risks.

The proposal calls on Biden to invest in major resiliency projects that will help prepare infrastructure for climate change’s impacts and make investments in clean energy projects.

“We are out of time and excuses. Our country is in crisis and, to address it, we will have to mobilize our social and economic resources on a massive scale,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement.

“If we want to ensure that our nation has an equitable economic recovery and prevent yet another life-altering crisis - then we have to start by calling this moment what it is, a national emergency," she added.

Republicans, however, denounced the idea of a presidentially-declared climate emergency.

Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) accused Schumer of “trying to muzzle Congress."

“Schumer wants the president to go it alone and produce more punishing regulations, raise energy costs, and kill even more American jobs,” he claimed.

US national security and intelligence experts have warned that climate change could become a “catastrophic” threat to global, national security.

“Even at scenarios of low warming, each region of the world will face severe risks to national and global security in the next three decades,” experts wrote in a report released last year by the National Security, Military and Intelligence Panel of the Center of Climate and Security.

“Higher levels of warming will pose catastrophic, and likely irreversible, global security risks over the course of the 21st century,” the report said.

The study warns that all levels of global warming of climate change will pose “significance and evolving threats” to security environments, infrastructure and institutions across the world.

Climate change could become a ‘catastrophic’ threat to global security: US security experts

US national security and intelligence experts have warned that climate change could become a “catastrophic” threat to global, national security, according to a new report.

The Paris agreement was reached on November 4, 2016 and has been signed by 197 countries. 135 of them have now formally ratified the agreement. They represent more than 75 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The Paris agreement seeks to avert climate change by limiting global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures by 2050. It also sets out a goal of reaching a limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius, if possible.

The adopted text acknowledges that the risks of climate change are much more serious than previously thought.

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