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20 February 21
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Bernie Sanders Closes In on $15 Minimum Wage
ALSO SEE: CBO Letter Signals That Bernie Sanders'
Minimum Wage Bill May Be Able to Pass Via Reconciliation
Tyler Van Dyke, Washington Examiner
Van Dyke writes: "Sen. Bernie Sanders has never been closer to achieving a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, with the Senate possibly voting on a budget reconciliation bill in the coming weeks."
Sanders continued his push on Wednesday, calling the current $7.25 an hour "starvation wages."
"The overwhelming majority of the American people understand that we must end starvation wages in America," Sanders tweeted. "That means raising the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $15 an hour by 2025. Period."
Sanders has long been at the forefront of the minimum wage fight. One of his first pieces of legislation, introduced in 1993, was the Liveable Wage Act, which would have increased the minimum wage based on the cost of living. The bill never received a vote, but he reintroduced it in 1995, 1997, and 1999 and in 2013 proposed a $10.10 federal minimum wage.
Sanders announced his first $15 an hour wage legislation in July 2015 at a Good Jobs Nation protest with federal contract workers who were demonstrating for better wages and pro-union executive orders from President Barack Obama.
Sanders made a $15 minimum wage a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign, and though Hilary Clinton won the nomination, Sanders's propensity for bringing "radical" ideas into the mainstream left a notable mark on the Democratic Party's platform.
During Obama's 2012 reelection campaign, the Democratic Party platform stated that it would "raise the minimum wage, and index it to inflation." What the wage would be raised to went unmentioned, and the party failed to pass any legislation.
But in 2016, the party shifted its stance and stated that Congress "should raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour over time and index it," adding that the party also supported "creating one fair wage for all workers by ending the subminimum wage for tipped workers and people with disabilities" — a dramatic shift from the 2012 platform.
The party platform under then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden also included a commitment to raising the minimum wage to $15 by 2026, and while it dropped stipulations of indexing the wage in the future, it included a commitment to "guarantee equal pay for women."
Sanders's support for a wage hike extends beyond legislation — he has tweeted support for a number of worker strikes and in 2019 joined a University of California Los Angeles picket line protesting for better wages and fair contract negotiations.
Last week, the House Education and Labor Committee completed a markup of its portion of the budget reconciliation bill, and after more than 13 hours of debate, a measure that would gradually increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour over the next five years was approved.
A finalized reconciliation bill is expected for a vote on the House floor the week of Feb. 22, after which it will be sent to the Senate, where it faces an uphill battle.
Republicans are generally opposed to increasing the federal minimum wage, preferring to leave decision-making to state and local governments — some states and localities already have a $15 minimum wage or have passed legislation to get there in the coming years, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
"Because of Socialist Senator Sanders’ ever rising influence in the Democratic Party, what was once a radical, far-Left proposal,—a federally mandated $15 minimum wage that would cost Iowans’ jobs and destroy small businesses during a global pandemic—is now a mainstream policy position supported by President Biden and rank-and-file Democrats alike," Sen. Joni Ernst told the Washington Examiner.
As it turns out, it's not just Democrats — in a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, two-thirds of the public said that they supported raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, including 43% of Republicans. And an Ipsos poll conducted in August 2020 found that 62% of Republican respondents supported raising the federal minimum wage generally, though the poll did not ask about an increase to $15 an hour.
While Democrats hold a slim majority in the Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tiebreaking 51st vote needed to pass reconciliation legislation, they would need unanimous support of the Democratic caucus, and at least two Democratic senators have expressed opposition to a $15 minimum wage, citing the potential negative consequences on states that have not raised their minimum wage above the federal level.
A report from the Congressional Budget Office suggested that move could cost as many as 1.4 million jobs — though it would also lift nearly 1 million people above the poverty line.
"This policy is a longstanding goal of Bernie and the left, and they are understandably keen to get victories early in the Congress," American Enterprise Institute's Ryan Bourne told the Washington Examiner. "But all economic focus now should be on ending the pandemic through a rapid vaccination of the population."
The wage hike also faces the Senate's Byrd Rule, which limits budget reconciliation legislation only to items that do not "increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year," according to a rules summary.
Though Biden said that he didn't think the wage hike was "going to survive" in the Senate, and White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that he would not ask Harris to circumvent the Byrd Rule, the president reaffirmed his support for the wage hike during a Tuesday town hall hosted by CNN.
"I do support a $15 minimum wage," Biden said. "I think there is equally as much, if not more, evidence to dictate that it would grow the economy and, long-run and medium-run, benefit small businesses as well as large businesses. And it would not have such a dilatory effect."
'According to the indictment, the group ascended a flight of stairs outside the Capitol in military-style formation and then went on to breach the building.' (photo: WSJ)
Justice Department Charges Suspected Oath Keepers in Plot to Attack the Capitol
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR
Temple-Raston writes: "The Justice Department charged six more people Friday it says are members of a right-wing militia group that plotted in advance of Jan. 6 to attack the U.S. Capitol."
The indictment offers the most sweeping evidence so far that members of the far-right extremist group known as the Oath Keepers had spent months allegedly planning to prevent Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's victory in a bid to keep former President Donald Trump in power.
The federal charges say 52-year-old Kelly Meggs, the self-described leader of the Florida chapter of the Oath Keepers, and his wife Connie, joined four other alleged militia members to breach the Capitol.
According to the indictment, the group ascended a flight of stairs outside the Capitol in military-style formation and then went on to breach the building. Federal prosecutors say Meggs parroted language from a tweet from Trump weeks before the siege. Trump had encouraged his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, saying it would be "wild."
"He wants us to make it WILD that's what he's saying," Meggs allegedly wrote in a Facebook post. "He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentleman we are heading to DC."
Last month, the Justice Department charged three members of the Oath Keepers with conspiring to undermine President Biden's win. Officials said that Thomas Edward Caldwell, Jessica Marie Watkins, and Donovan Ray Crowl had allegedly set up training for urban warfare and riot control in preparation for the Jan. 6 siege shortly after then-President-elect Joe Biden's election victory and had allegedly briefly discussed bringing weapons into Washington, D.C., by boat.
The latest indictment adds six more people to the alleged conspiracy, including a retired Ohio couple, Sandra and Bennie Parker, and another suspected Florida Oath Keeper, Graydon Young, who allegedly arranged to get members of the group trained in firearms and combat.
Former press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign, Briahna Joy Gray. (photo: Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
Former Sanders Aide Blasts Biden Over Student Debt Forgiveness
The Hill
riahna Joy Gray, the former press secretary for the Bernie Sanders campaign, on Wednesday, said that President Biden is hiding behind the most “unsympathetic character” to avoid canceling up to $50,000 in student loan debt.
Speaking on Hill TV’s “Rising,” the co-host of the Bad Faith podcast was discussing comments Biden made on student debt relief during a CNN town hall on Tuesday.
The president said that he didn’t have the power to cancel up to $50,000 in student loan debt, but was prepared to forgive $10,000 instead.
“It’s not true, Joe Biden has the authority to cancel all student loan debt,” Gray said.
Gray explained that the government is now deciding that student loans are a “risky behavior” that shouldn’t be rewarded after allowing students to take out debt on the belief that education drives the workforce.
Gray said the government is using the “specter of the occasional Harvard student” as an excuse not to cancel debt for the majority of students that didn’t go to more affluent schools.
“It is almost as though Joe Biden is trying to find the most unsympathetic character in the world to justify not pursuing a very sympathetic program,” Gray said.
A girl from Central America rests on thermal blankets at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
"Dying of Cold": ICE Detainees Freezing in Southern Prisons
Alleen Brown, The Intercept
Brown writes:
Reports are emerging from ICE detention centers of solitary confinement cells with no heat and guards blasting fans at detainees complaining of cold.
n Louisiana and Texas, immigrants seeking asylum are facing dire conditions in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers hit by this week’s extreme cold. At the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, advocates say parents and children have been living with overflowing toilets, thirst, poor hygiene, and heat that fades in and out. Twenty miles away, at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, advocates say detainees who complained about the cold faced retaliation. At the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Louisiana, a detainee interviewed by The Intercept reports that the segregation unit, akin to solitary confinement, has no heat.
Lucia Allain, communications manager for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, known as RAICES, has been in contact with Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez, a father detained at the Pearsall facility, located outside San Antonio. Although the ICE processing center, which is run by the private prison firm GEO Group, did not lose power, detainees were still left without sufficient heat. “He said, ‘We’re all really, really cold,’” Allain told The Intercept, of her conversation on Thursday with Ochoa Lopez.
Detainees’ complaints to ICE agents about the temperature have been met with retaliation, Ochoa Lopez told Allain. “The officers are turning on fans to make it colder,” Allain said. “If they’re hearing complaints like, ‘Oh it’s cold in here,’ they’ll be like, ‘It could be worse,’ and turn on fans.” Ochoa Lopez told her that agents have thrown blankets into the garbage after detainees complained.
The situation heightened fears that the cold will leave people vulnerable to Covid-19 in a unit that houses around 90 people. ICE detention centers have been wracked with coronavirus infections, in part thanks to the nature of the close quarters. Detainees, advocates, and whistleblowers have also reported mismanagement and medical neglect.
Ochoa Lopez told Allain that the tension has at times spilled over into detainees fighting over the insufficient blankets.
ICE officials deny there is a problem with heat at the Pearsall facility. “Temperature checks at Pearsall yesterday showed that all areas of the facility were on average 70 degrees and within the acceptable range of 69 to 76 degrees,” a spokesperson told The Intercept over email.
Immigration advocates are accustomed to ICE denying problems exist. “First we had the mistreatment and separation of families, then we came into Covid with people getting sick in these facilities, now we have this whole other situation happening,” said Allain. She noted that many of the detainees in these centers could be paroled into the U.S. as they awaited asylum and other immigration rulings. So far the Biden administration has failed to take action: “In Texas, there is no move from this administration to release these families.”
ICE Cold Detention
At ICE’s Pine Prairie, Louisiana, detention center, the system of punishment for detainees became much more severe with the cold. Angel Argueta Anariba, who is detained there, told The Intercept that, although other parts of the facility have heat, the segregation unit does not.
Argueta Anariba was placed in an individual segregation cell a few days before the cold set in — a situation he describes as retaliatory. Argueta Anariba has a health condition that calls for a special diet. For months he has pressured the various ICE facilities to which he’s been transferred to fulfill his dietary requirements, to no avail. He said the Pine Prairie administration’s explanation for placing him in segregation — that he destroyed government property — is false. Rather, he believes it was retaliation for the continued pressure he has put on the institution to give him the correct meals.
Pine Prairie was recently accused of other retaliatory efforts. The Intercept reported this month that a guard at the private prison had threatened detainees with being put into the coronavirus ward if they did not submit to deportation orders.
For Argueta Anariba, the typical stresses of isolated confinement were unexpectedly compounded by the cold. Although detainees in segregation are in individual cells, Argueta Anariba was able to speak to the others through the walls. “There’s no heat, there’s nothing — we were eight people dying of cold,” he said. Argueta Anariba said he put on three pairs of pants and three shirts and stayed wrapped in his sheets in his bed all day. He said that meals would arrive cold by the time they got to the cell. His bones ached. “I’m asthmatic,” he said. “On Sunday I had terrible chest pain.” Though the freezing weather arrived on Friday, Argueta Anariba said it wasn’t until Sunday that he was offered an extra blanket.
On Thursday, he was released back into a regular — heated — unit, a move he says could have happened sooner to protect him from the cold. ICE officials told The Intercept that although Pine Prairie made use of a generator on Wednesday, and the facility never lost heat or power. “ICE facilities in Louisiana are experiencing weather-related impacts that mirror the local community, however all ICE facilities have back-up generator power,” a spokesperson said. “All facilities have also implemented contingency plans developed in anticipation of severe winter weather.”
The assessment did not match Argueta Anariba’s experience. “There are seven people still in those conditions,” he said on Thursday. “To leave people in those conditions is inhumane.”
Families Freeze in Texas
ICE has the power to allow detainees to leave facilities that have become increasingly dangerous, said Natalie Lerner, a paralegal with Proyecto Dilley, a pro bono legal services provider for detainees at the South Texas Family Residential Center. “In our view, they should pretty seriously consider releasing everybody,” she said. “It seems like the conditions aren’t very safe.”
The pandemic is of particular concern. “What has been on my mind is the folks we work with that have preexisting issues, who are already vulnerable because of Covid, and this is further threatening their health,” she said.
Families she works with inside the South Texas Family Residential Center — which is managed by private prison company CoreCivic — report that since Sunday the heat and electricity have periodically shut down, at times for long stretches. Over the weekend, the water was cut off and toilets overflowed. With no means to flush, the shared toilets became more and more full, Lerner said. Parents and children were given one bottle of water in the morning to get them through the day. They were left wearing the same clothes for days on end. As of Thursday, blackouts and problems with water continued.
With phone service spotty, a sense of isolation has set in. “One client I’ve been working with, who has a wife in the facility — they’re detained separately — she has a lot of medical concerns,” Lerner said. “He’s been really, really worried about her.”
She added that there’s a huge amount of worry for parents for their kids. “We’ve heard people saying kids are getting sick because of how cold it is,” she said. “People are expressing a lot of desperation.”
Again, ICE officials denied the advocates’ reports. “Like most of Texas, ICE facilities in Texas have had to deal with intermittent power outages and interruptions in water service, however all ICE facilities have back-up generator power,” a spokesperson said. “Toilets at South Texas FRC are not overflowing. Residents of the South Texas FRC did experience interruptions in water service for a couple of days, like most of Texas, but it was restored yesterday. No facilities are rationing water bottles, and they have plenty of water bottles.”
Across the border in Matamoros, asylum-seekers, including families with children, have suffered the cold weather at a refugee camp that emerged in response to President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration policies. The Migration Protection Protocols, known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, forced many asylum-seekers to wait for their asylum hearings on the Mexico side of the border. Although President Joe Biden ended the program, the asylum-seekers have not yet been processed.
Preexisting Conditions
Although the extreme weather is certainly to blame for much of the misery in ICE detention centers this month, many of the conditions precede the storms. Even in areas accustomed to cold, the immigration agency’s detention centers have a reputation for failing to keep people warm in cold weather.
Over the last few weeks, for example, the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, which holds ICE detainees, has lacked heat. On January 29, the Legal Aid Society, the Bronx Defenders, and Brooklyn Defender Services wrote a letter to the agency, saying, “At least one detainee has been told ‘the cold will kill the coronavirus, so we’re not turning it on.’”
Meanwhile, a whistleblower who worked at Louisiana’s Richwood Correctional Center, run by the private prison firm LaSalle Corrections, told the Government Accountability Project that staff were told to crank up the air conditioning in order to hide Covid-19 cases. Detainee temperatures were taken from their foreheads; the idea was to “freeze them out” and manipulate the thermometer so that deportation flights wouldn’t reject people with fevers.
Meanwhile, the holding cells operated by Customs and Border Protection have long been known as hieleras, or ice boxes.
In response to the complaints about Bergen, ICE officials told The Intercept, “Temperature checks at Bergen today showed that all areas of the facility were within the acceptable temperature range and no complaints about heat have been reported by detainees at the facility.”
Sophia Elena Gurulé, immigration policy counsel at the Bronx Defenders, said it’s typical for such concerns to be ignored. “As recent as two days ago we heard complaints from our clients, people detained at Bergen County Jail, that there are ongoing problems with the heat,” she said. “The Bronx Defenders and the providers that issued that statement have been issuing statements like that for years.”
She added that the problem of no heat is not limited to an extreme weather event or region. “This is inherent to how the systems are actually run and monitored. There is no way that these facilities can be properly handled by an agency that continues to demonstrate a lack of real oversight consideration or care,” she said. “It really makes you wonder why ICE does not release people in their custody to make it so people can fight their deportation cases on the outside.”
Such problems are only expected to get worse, given the effects of the climate crisis, and Biden has no plans to end ICE detention. How much conditions in ICE detention will change under the new administration is yet to be seen. Biden is reportedly preparing a plan to release many of the families detained at the South Texas Family Residential Center.
Ochoa Lopez is a survivor of Trump’s zero tolerance immigration policy. He was separated from his son in 2018, after crossing the border into the U.S. The family, which is from Guatemala, was reunited two months later, but Ochoa Lopez was detained again in October after being convicted of driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor. As NBC News reported, Ochoa Lopez’s 9-year-old son has written to Biden, pleading for his father’s release.
The Biden administration’s latest immigration enforcement guidelines, released Thursday, say that only immigrants who present a national security or public safety threat, or recently crossed the border, should be prioritized for detention or deportation — leaving an opening for a reprieve for Ochoa Lopez. His attorney said that he falls under none of the enforcement priorities, and she has filed a new petition for his release, based on Biden’s guidelines. The order does not offer such a clear pathway of release for Argueta Anariba.
The “public safety threat” label encompasses people convicted of a crime that includes active gang involvement or who are convicted of a so-called aggravated felony, a term that refers to an array of offenses — not all of them criminal felonies — legally tied to severe immigration consequences. The new guidelines note that ICE officers should also consider a person’s family and health circumstances, as well as how recent and serious their criminal activity was, when deciding whether to prioritize their detention.
Gurulé said it’s not enough to meaningfully change the system. “What I’ve seen so far is the continued criminalization of immigrants, the continued wanting to expel people from the country because of their criminal legal system contact,” she said.
Argueta Anariba was sent to ICE detention six years ago after spending seven years in prison for aggravated assault, the product of an incident he describes as self-defense. His attorneys have already argued that his crime does not count as an “aggravated felony.” An immigration judge declined to rule on the matter and decided to continue to hold him on unrelated grounds.
By now, Argueta Anariba, a father of four, has spent nearly as much time in ICE detention as he did completing his prison sentence. Despite such a long detention in such torturous conditions, Argueta Anariba is certain he will be killed if he is deported to Honduras. His asylum case is pending.
A healthcare worker and a patient. (photo: ABC News)
One Month In, How Biden Has Changed Disaster Management and the US COVID-19 Response
Brian J. Gerber and Melanie Gall, The Conversation
Excerpt: "After one month in office, the Biden administration has fundamentally changed how the federal government responds to the COVID-19 pandemic."
In direct contrast to his predecessor, President Joe Biden is treating this as a national-scale crisis requiring a comprehensive national strategy and federal resources. If that sounds familiar, it should: It’s a return to a traditional – and in many ways proven – approach to disaster management.
The Trump administration deviated dramatically from established emergency management practices. It politicized public health and related decision-making processes and overrode the disaster response roles of federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Among other things, the Trump administration established an entirely new coordination structure headed by a White House task force, then changed the lead federal agency from Health and Human Services to FEMA. Those moves, combined with a disjointed array of other operational task forces, made it difficult to create an integrated response. Even basic data collection from hospitals for tracking the coronavirus’s spread was thrown into disarray by changes.
The Biden administration is now reempowering key federal agencies to return to the roles and responsibilities they were designed for within a planned national disaster management structure.
Our own work in hazards management, with both governments and nongovernmental organizations, has shown us that fidelity to proper process and respect for expertise is essential to effective disaster management. The Biden administration’s approach to the pandemic so far suggests this is the model it will follow.
What federal emergency response was designed to do
By design, the U.S. federal system for managing disasters is decentralized and tiered.
The system is structured so that local governments take the lead in managing hazards and responding to local emergencies. But when an emergency becomes a disaster-scale problem, state and federal governments should be prepared to provide financial assistance and other support, particularly logistical support.
FEMA, established in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter, has a crucial role as a national emergency management coordinator. Just getting all levels of government to work together effectively, along with private and nonprofit organizations, represents a massive challenge. Major crises over the years, including the Sept. 11 terror attacks, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, have helped refine federal strategies and processes and improve preparedness for future disasters – including pandemics.
Pandemic preparedness has been a part of U.S. emergency management planning since at least 2003. The H1N1 bird flu crisis in 2009 triggered the passage of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Authorization Act in 2013. That law established Health and Human Services as the lead federal agency, and the statute specifically addresses the development of medical surge capacity, pandemic vaccine and drug development and more.
Managing a pandemic is more challenging than other types of disasters. Unlike a wildfire or tornado, which strikes a specific place for a limited period of time, a global pandemic is all-encompassing, affecting all jurisdictions and every economic sector. It requires focused coordination between public health and emergency response bureaucracies within government and with other key partners such as hospitals.
Given the scale of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government normally would have taken the lead in coordinating the response and assistance. Instead, the Trump administration devolved primary responsibility for the pandemic response to state and local governments, despite their limited capacity.
This approach was doomed to fail. It muddled use of the National Response Framework and created a competitive environment for state and local governments as they scrambled for supplies. It sidelined the agencies involved in pandemic preparedness, such as the CDC and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and it ignored specific plans for a pandemic response. It also politicized resource allocation choices and undermined, through misinformation, the importance of public health behaviors such as wearing masks.
Biden’s return to established practices
Against this backdrop, the Biden administration’s early efforts to return to established disaster management practice underscore the importance of leadership of complex systems used to address complex problems.
The list of changes in the month since Biden took office is extensive. The administration issued a comprehensive national strategy for pandemic response. It increased the involvement of FEMA and the Department of Defense to support vaccination distribution, expanded COVID-19 testing for underserved populations and rejoined the World Health Organization, which Trump had pulled out of. Biden also invoked the Defense Production Act to mobilize private industry to ramp up production of test kits, vaccines and personal protective equipment. The administration is now advocating for a national COVID-19 relief package in Congress.
The Biden administration’s rapid, strategic reorientation of the federal government to manage the pandemic has parallels for other complex challenges, including developing a national strategy for addressing climate change. Continuing to refine these processes, including proper management of the federal bureaucracy, and public investments aimed at reducing risk should be priorities for the administration.
Protesters carrying an injured man in Mandalay, Myanmar. (photo: AP)
Myanmar Police Open Fire on Protesters, Killing 2
Richard C. Paddock, The New York Times
Paddock writes: "The police in Myanmar opened fire on protesters in the city of Mandalay on Saturday, killing two people and wounding dozens, according to witnesses."
At least 40 people protesting the military’s ouster of civilian leaders were wounded in the city of Mandalay, volunteer medics said.
The shootings occurred as the authorities were trying to force workers back to their jobs at a local shipyard. They were among hundreds of thousands of workers across Myanmar who have walked off their jobs to protest the military’s Feb. 1 coup and its ouster of elected civilian leaders.
More than 1,000 demonstrators gathered at the shipyard to block the police, leading to a tense standoff that lasted much of Saturday afternoon. The authorities used water cannons, rubber bullets, tear gas, slingshots and ultimately live ammunition to break up the crowd, witnesses said.
A target for limiting global warming - '1.5 DEGREES' - is projected on the Eiffel Tower as part of a United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. (photo: Shun Kambe)
US Rejoins Paris Climate Accord With Warning: This Year's Talks Are 'Last, Best Hope'
Oliver Milman, Guardian UK
Milman writes:
John Kerry made remark as US officially returned to climate agreement on Friday, 107 days after it left under Donald Trump
he US has marked its return to the Paris agreement by urging countries to do more to confront the climate crisis, with America’s climate envoy, John Kerry, warning that international talks this year are the “last, best hope” of avoiding catastrophic global heating.
On Friday, the US officially returned to the Paris climate accord, 107 days after it left at the behest of former president Donald Trump. Joe Biden moved to reverse this on his first day in office and Kerry conceded that the US is returning “with a lot of humility, for the agony of the last four years”.
“This is a significant day, a day that never had to happen,” Kerry said to Al Gore, the former US vice-president, in a conversation filmed on the eve of the re-entry. “It’s so sad that our previous president without any scientific basis or any legitimate economic rationale decided to pull America out. It hurt us and it hurt the world.”
The contrition of the Biden administration is, however, balanced by a desire to resume the mantle of leadership at a time when almost every country is struggling to undertake the swift emissions cuts required to avert disastrous global heating of 1.5C above the pre-industrial era, as outlined in the Paris deal.
Kerry said that none of the world’s major emitters, including China, India and the EU, are doing enough and that key UN climate talks later this year in Glasgow, Scotland, provide the “last, best hope we have” to get the world on track to avoid runaway climate change.
“The meeting in Glasgow rises in its importance,” said Kerry, a former US secretary of state. “We are at this most critical moment where we have the capacity to define the decade of the 20s which will make or break us to get to net zero carbon in 2050.” Kerry said that countries will have to “define in real terms their roadmap for the next 10 years, the next 30 years. We are talking about a reality we haven’t been able to assemble in these meetings so far.”
Kerry said that coal use needs to be phased out far more quickly, coupled with a rapid escalation of electric vehicles and renewable energy, and that he hoped to “build some new coalitions and approach this in a new way”. The US climate envoy said he had reached out to the pro-fossil fuel leaderships in Brazil and Australia, which have “had some differences with us, we’ve not been able to get on the same page completely”.
“For the last four years there were a lot of times when a lot of us thought the failure of this enterprise may rest on one word: Trump,” Kerry said in an event on Friday to mark the Paris re-entry. “But the international climate regime is still standing.”
While emissions worldwide from factories, airplanes and cars dipped sharply last year due to pandemic-related lockdowns, there are already signs of a roaring comeback that risks blowing past the agreed temperature limits and unleash worsening heatwaves, flooding, storms and societal unrest. The narrowing window of time to avoid climate breakdown means there is only brief cheering over the return of the US, the world’s second largest emitter of greenhouse gases.
“It’s good to have the US back in the Paris agreement, but sadly we have no time to celebrate,” said Laurence Tubiana, France’s climate change ambassador and a key architect of the Paris agreement. “The climate crisis is deepening and this is the year we need all major polluters to step up and deliver stronger plans to deliver a safe, clean and prosperous future for everyone.”
The US will release a new emissions cut pledge ahead of a 22 April summit convened by Biden with other major emitting countries and Tubiana said this goal should be “at least” a 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030, from 2005 levels. The US, under Barack Obama, promised a 26% cut by 2025 and got about halfway to this target before the Covid-19 outbreak.
A coalition of nearly 200 environmental and humanitarian groups have urged the Biden administration to move well beyond the largely symbolic act of rejoining the Paris agreement by contributing billions of dollars to help defend poorer countries vulnerable to climate impacts and “lead with actions rather than just words”.
“The climate crisis is a race against time, and the US is just reaching the starting line after years of inaction,” said Jean Su, energy justice director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “As the world’s largest historical polluter, the United States must take its fair share of robust climate action on both the domestic and global stage.”
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