Joe Biden visited parts of eastern Kentucky devastated by the worst flooding in state history on Monday and pledged to help recovery, while his spokesman warned the climate crisis had an impact on such events there and across America.
At least 37 people have died in flooding since a deluge late last month that dropped up to 10.5 inches of rain on Kentucky in just 48 hours.
The US president said the nation has an obligation to help all of its residents, saying the federal government will provide support until residents are back on their feet.
Behind him, as he spoke, was a house that the storm had dislodged and thrown to the ground, tilted to one side.
“We have the ability to do it, it’s not like it’s out of our control,” Biden said, adding that “the weather may be out of our control right now” but engaging “we’re staying until everyone is back where they were”.
Earlier in the day, en route from his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after emerging from coronavirus isolation, to Kentucky, Biden hailed landmark health and climate action legislation that passed the difficult course of the US Senate on Sunday.
He called the Cut Inflation Act, which could pass the House and be on his way to his office to sign the law by the end of the week, “a big deal” and said that He expected her to help Democrats’ prospects in November’s midterm elections. , which looked grim.
Then White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the issue of climate change during her press briefing aboard Air Force One en route to Lexington with Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. .
“The floods of Kentucky and the extreme weather across the country is another reminder of the intensifying and accelerating effects of climate change and the urgent need to invest in making our communities more resilient,” she said.
Jean-Pierre called the measures in the new bill “so vital”, alongside previous infrastructure legislation which aims to build climate resilience.
“In the long term, these investments will save lives, reduce costs and protect communities like the one we are visiting today,” she said.
An independent analysis of the Inflation Reduction Act shows that should decide America’s global warming emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared to 2005 levels.
The cut would bring the United States a striking distance from a goal set by Biden to halve emissions by 2030, a goal that scientists say must be met by the whole world in the event of catastrophic global warming. , triggering escalating heat wavesdroughts and floods, should be avoided.
Biden called climate change the “existential crisis of our time” and the president had been under pressure in recent weeks to declare a national climate emergency, when legislation passed by the Senate on Sunday had seemed out of reachwhile recording heat waves and forest fires ravaged the american west.
On Monday, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the flooding was “unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” He followed deadly tornadoes in the western part of the state that killed nearly 100 people last December.
Last week, China to cut defense and climate talks with the United States aggressive military exercises across the Taiwan Strait in retaliation for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, the island democracy that claims independence but which Beijing says is part of the communist People’s Republic of China.