January 16, 2025
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Biden warns of ‘powerful forces’ threatening climate action
President Biden warned in his farewell address that powerful “oligarchy” could undo four years of progress on climate policy.
President Joe Biden will deliver a farewell address Wednesday in the Oval Office of the White House.
Mandel Gunn – Pool/Getty Images
Climate wire | President Joe Biden used the first half of his 17-minute farewell address Wednesday night to tout his accomplishments over the past four years, highlighting infrastructure and climate legislation that created new jobs across the country.
Then it got dark.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Biden warned that a powerful “oligarchy” was threatening American democracy and seeking to undermine and destroy his climate policy. He said climate change is one of the most serious threats facing this country and he is concerned about the fate of the Inflation Control Act, a landmark climate law. The law includes about $400 billion in clean energy spending, which President-elect Donald Trump has promised to restore.
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“We’ve proven that you don’t have to choose between protecting the environment and growing the economy. We’re doing both,” Biden said. “For their own power and interests, powerful forces want to use their unchecked influence to eliminate the steps we have taken to tackle the climate crisis.”
Mr. Biden has never directly nominated Mr. Trump. But he blamed a fog of misinformation for misleading the American public. Press freedom, he said, “is collapsing.” Social media fact checkers have been deprecated, he said, referring to tech giant Meta’s recent announcement that it would no longer use fact checkers.
“I’m equally concerned about the potential rise of a high-tech industrial complex that could pose a real danger to our country,” Biden said. “The American people are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling abuses of power.”
Biden’s speech made clear that he is concerned that his climate legacy is under threat. He is overseeing the most aggressive climate change plan in U.S. history, and some of its impacts, such as promoting clean energy manufacturing and electric vehicles, are likely to remain after the Trump administration.
But Biden’s climate efforts will also face a frontal attack over the next four years. President Trump wants to repeal or weaken anti-inflation laws as much as possible, and a flurry of executive orders are expected soon after taking office, starting to target fossil fuel regulations.
We will no longer have a president who frequently called climate change an “existential threat.” Sitting at Resolute’s desk is a president who promises, “Drill, baby, drill.”
President Trump has promised to end government support for EVs. He intends to replace a White House currently focused on forcing all federal agencies to consider climate change with one determined to ramp up fossil fuel production as quickly as possible.
And while Mr. Biden increased the number of federal employees focused on climate change, carbon emission reductions and environmental justice, Mr. Trump’s incoming Cabinet pledged to purge the federal workforce.
In the final moments of his speech in the Oval Office, which will end his nearly half-century career in public office in just a few days, Biden left behind a small message of hope.
“After 50 years in public office, I want to make it clear that I still believe in the position of this country, that the strength of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must survive. “I will.” “Now it’s your turn to guard.”
Reprinted from E&E News Published with permission of POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides news that matters to energy and environment professionals.
