Biden’s Attack on Climate Change Gives Surprise Reprieve to Coal – by Jennifer A. Dlouhy (Bloomberg News – Janauary 29, 2021)

https://www.bloombergquint.com/

(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden enlisted the entire U.S. government in the fight against climate change on Wednesday, even telling the Central Intelligence Agency to consider global warming a national security threat.

Yet he left out coal — the fossil fuel most widely blamed for global warming — when he froze the sale of leases to extract oil and gas from federal land.

It was a conspicuous omission for a president who has vowed to make the electric grid carbon-free by 2035 and who has said the world’s “future rests in renewable energy.”

“This order should have included all fossil fuel extraction on public lands,” said Mitch Jones, policy director at the environmental group Food and Water Watch, who called the decision to leave out coal both “a disappointment” and “scientifically unsound.”

“For years we’ve been force fed the false idea that fracked gas — fracked methane — is cleaner than coal, but, now, coal gets a pass?” Jones said. “The fight against climate change demands that we remain vigilant against all fossil fuel extraction.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/coal-wins-curious-reprieve-in-biden-s-assault-on-climate-change