US President, Joe Biden has reiterated his administration’s resolve to spend more than any country ever has on clean energy as a way of combating the rise in U.S. planet-heating emissions and inflation.
Biden made this known in his first State of the Union speech on Tuesday evening, adding that fighting climate change would translate into an average $500 per year in energy savings for American households.
Biden emphasized that he views confronting climate change as an opportunity to create high-wage jobs in renewable energy and manufacturing and set the United States up to compete directly with China.
The US President also pledged to build out 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations and replace lead pipes as part of 4,000 infrastructure projects he said were already underway.
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Furthermore, he promised to “start fixing over 65,000 miles of highway and 1,500 bridges in disrepair.
He said, “It is never a good bet to bet against the American people,”. “We’ll create good jobs for millions of Americans, modernizing roads, airports, ports, waterways all across America. And we’ll do it to withstand the devastating effects of climate change and promote environmental justice.”
Biden’s address comes a day after the United Nations released another sobering climate change report, which concluded that “the extent and magnitude of climate change impacts are larger” than previously known and that the window to “secure a liveable and sustainable future” is rapidly closing.
Story was adapted from Huffpost.