Just one week into his administration, President Joe Biden issued bold executive orders launching the most ambitious approach to climate change we have seen coming from our nation’s capital. I am so grateful, as are my sons, that we have a president who has the fortitude to take on the fossil fuel industry and move us forward at a pace the climate crisis demands.
As Salt Lake City mayor, I spent a great deal of time learning about climate change and its damage to Utah. In just the past five years of my young sons’ lives, they have experienced a devastating drought, wildfires, floods, destructive windstorms and earthquakes, all of which only stand to worsen if we do nothing. Utahns should know that our state is warming at twice the global rate and, along the Wasatch Front, our air quality remains among the worst in the country.
Climate change scientists came knocking on our doors almost 50 years ago and finally, someone answered the door.
Biden knows that America has wasted precious years failing to deal with this existential threat and that we can no longer afford to ignore science. He is acutely aware that we must prepare for the inevitable impacts of our delay even as we work as quickly to avoid more abrupt and cataclysmic events through the bold and ambitious actions.
The president’s “leave no one behind” climate crisis package also delivers a just transition for rural economies and tackles environmental injustice in our urban areas, establishing a path that can sync with elements of the Utah Roadmap.
Instead of denouncing Biden’s temporary halt to energy leases on federal lands when Utah Republican leaders should be focusing on abundant clean energy job possibilities and market-savvy financial opportunities for rural Utah.
Utah will never be ready to convert our energy portfolio to renewables if we don’t start now to help rural Utah communities seize this moment to evolve out of the fossil fuel industry.
Last year we came together on the Utah Roadmap, setting the stage for this change. We can come together under the Biden administration and we should.
Major companies from diverse sectors of our country’s economy have committed to meeting the profound challenge of climate change and are urging Congress and the president to work together to address this issue. These companies include Amazon, Dominion Energy, JP Morgan Chase, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, and IBM and General Motors, which announced it will be selling 100% electric vehicles by 2035.
It is time we join the national conversation with an open mind to ensure Utahns benefit from the American jobs the president will be creating through clean energy investment, innovation and technology. Not only does the health of the planet count on this transition, but our ability to establish sustainable rural economies does as well.
“Twenty five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.” — Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Jackie Biskupski
Jackie Biskupski was mayor of Salt Lake City from 2016 to 2020.