After four years of a Trump presidency with little to no actions taken against climate change, President Joe Biden’s climate plan will be a major step towards addressing the problem. However, Biden’s plan is too little, too late.

Biden’s climate plan does address many aspects of the problem at hand. Biden’s plan calls for 0% emissions by 2050, and he will remove Trump-era tax incentives from oil companies to fund his plan. The plan will create new jobs in low-carbon energy, as well as infrastructure jobs that would combat pollution created by cars and vehicles. Efforts will be redirected into researching electric cars, and limits will be set on gas and oil production. The plan is a good first step towards a brighter future.

However, the plan is not nearly aggressive enough. While the plan is more aggressive than any other plans so far, it does not eliminate emissions fast enough. Biden’s unwillingness to eliminate dangerous procedures like fracking are slowing the plan down, and the timeline for this plan is still far too slow compared to that of the Green New Deal. The transition to clean energy must be accelerated, and many more measures must be implemented to prevent emissions.

Biden’s plan is much more narrowly focused on the environment than the Green New Deal. If we are to deal with climate change, a much stronger response is necessary, one that resolves the situation as quickly as possible while benefiting the people affected by it. Even if Biden’s climate plan resolved the climate problem, it does little to resolve intersectional issues such as poverty or the widening gap between the rich and the poor. If issues tying into climate change are not addressed, the progress made against the climate crisis could be reversed. Resolving the climate crisis without addressing these issues may save our planet from one issue, but it will plunge us into a sea of new problems created during the attempt to repair the damage done to the planet. Solving climate change and creating more problems in the process is not the way to go about this problem. If a solution to the climate crisis is to be created, it should be one that meets the goals of the Green New Deal, which would solve related issues such as poverty and healthcare problems. Otherwise, these issues could worsen and force the country to turn back to oil and coal as cheap alternatives for energy. 

Biden’s environmental plan, while a step in the right direction, simply isn’t enough. In order to take back our future that climate change stole, a more aggressive and wide-reaching plan is necessary.

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