The head of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development praised President Biden this week for the new administration’s environmental priorities.
“President Biden’s environmental executive orders resonate deeply with an integral ecology that listens to the ‘least of these’ (Mt 25:40),” said Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley in a statement. “Not only do they recommit our nation to robust and integrated climate mitigation policies, but also emphasize other environmental realities that deserve greater attention.”
In his January 27 Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, Biden said he was following the science by “putting the climate crisis at the center of United States foreign policy and national security.”
“The United States and the world face a profound climate crisis,” Biden asserted. “We have a narrow moment to pursue action at home and abroad in order to avoid the most catastrophic impacts of that crisis and to seize the opportunity that tackling climate change presents.”
“There is little time left to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory,” the president stated. “Responding to the climate crisis will require both significant short-term global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and net-zero global emissions by mid-century or before.”
In his statement, Archbishop Coakley said that Biden’s executive orders emphasize key environmental realities such as climate adaptation and resilience, just transition and revitalization of communities reliant on the energy industry, environmental justice, land conservation, ecosystems, and commitment to protecting the Amazon rainforest.
“The swift action to restore regulations for which the USCCB previously advocated—including fuel emissions standards, hazardous air pollutants and the integrity of National Environmental Policy Act—speak of a commitment to restoring public health and the common home,” the archbishop said.
Biden has appointed a Catholic, John Kerry, as Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, “to elevate the issue of climate change and underscore the commitment my Administration will make toward addressing it.”
In recent days, Mr. Kerry has received sharp criticism for traveling to and from international climate events in a private jet.
Kerry said in an interview with the BBC last week that humanity only has nine years left to save the planet from manmade climate change.