President Biden to deliver a ‘decisive’ decade halftime report on climate

President Joe Biden on Tuesday will tell a group of top business leaders that the climate crisis presents unprecedented economic opportunity Tuesday in what the White House is billing as a “decisive decade halftime report” following his final speech to the UN General Assembly as president.

Speaking to the New York City-based Bloomberg Global Business Forum, the president is expected to make the case for a future that focuses on building up US manufacturing and infrastructure, and rebuilding the American middle class.

In a preview of the speech on Monday, National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi told reporters that the president will not be “focused on doom and gloom,” despite somewhat grim projections of the rapidly warming world.

Instead, he will tout accomplishments made during the course of his presidency. According to Zaidi, some of those include launching the offshore wind industry; building 100 gigawatts of clean energy in the US; bringing nuclear plants back online; working to raise electric vehicles sales; finalizing standards for more efficient appliances that will save a trillion dollars over coming decades; and what he described as the “largest investment in clean energy electrification since FDR.”

On Friday, Microsoft and Constellation Energy announced a major deal to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant: the site of the worst nuclear accident in the nation’s history.

“He’s done all of this while protecting the environment,” Zaidi said. “It’s been noted: 42 million acres served by tackling the scourge of environmental injustice.”

But Zaidi did not go any further into related feats.

“He’s made sure that we are leaning into the manufacturing opportunity in all of this,” he said, highlighting that the US had