Biden makes pitch to young peo­ple with cli­mate, but div­i­dends may not pay off

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden is under­scor­ing his cli­mate record on Earth Day as younger, more lib­er­al Democ­rats sour on him amid the Israel–Hamas war.
But although Biden’s pub­lic events con­tin­ue to be inter­rupt­ed by some cli­mate activists, includ­ing his New York fundrais­er with for­mer Pres­i­dents Barack Oba­ma and Bill Clin­ton, what was once a top pri­or­i­ty for the demo­graph­ic is being over­shad­owed by the Mid­dle East and the econ­o­my.
Democ­rats, such as for­mer Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer (D‑NY) aide Christo­pher Hahn, have praised Biden’s cli­mate record, which includes the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act’s $370 bil­lion cli­mate invest­ment, his com­mit­ment to reduc­ing car­bon emis­sions to 40% below 2005 lev­els, and his sig­na­ture pol­i­cy of encour­ag­ing the adop­tion of elec­tric vehi­cles.
“Biden is mak­ing sure that Amer­i­ca leads the world on the tech­nolo­gies that will pow­er the future,” Hahn told the Wash­ing­ton Exam­in­er. “His goals are ambi­tious, but clear­ly the last three years has seen a grow­ing demand for clean vehi­cles, and all indi­ca­tions is that this will con­tin­ue.”

Pres­i­dent Joe Biden speaks at Prince William For­est Park on Earth Day, Mon­day, April 22, 2024, in Tri­an­gle, Vir­ginia. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Cene­ta)

At the same time, cli­mate activists remem­ber the $2 tril­lion spend­ing promise Biden made dur­ing his 2020 cam­paign and his orig­i­nal 50%-52% emis­sions pledge, remind­ing him that sci­en­tists rec­om­mend cut­ting emis­sions by 70%-100%.
“As young peo­ple, we’re often called unre­al­is­tic or naive for demand­ing the world …