Joe Biden defends climate record and calls for "environmental revolution"

HAMPTON, NH – Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. defended Monday his climate change record against critics issued by his rivals regarding the nomination to the 2020 Democratic presidency and called on to a rational and affordable "green revolution". .

In his first New Hampshire election campaign since entering the presidential race, Biden also said dismantling big tech companies like Facebook was "something we should really be interested in", and has not made fun of President Trump's tariffs on Chinese products. .

Speaking in a New Hampshire pizzeria, Mr Biden pledged to deliver "a detailed speech in detail" by the end of May, highlighting his environmental priorities. The promise came after a Reuters article in which a person advising Biden described it as seeking common ground in the fight against global warming. The Biden campaign said the characterization was inaccurate, but liberal activists and candidates like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders questioned his audacity for the climate.

Biden, echoing the language of the revolution used by Sanders, said Monday that the country needed an "environmental revolution" and rejected Reuters' article citing an assessment of his work on the issue by PolitiFact. Last week, the fact-finding official said that he had in fact introduced the first climate change bill in the 1980s.

"I said, we have an existential threat, we are in a situation where, if we do not act quickly, we will virtually lose almost everything we have," Biden said. And that's exactly the case. It's even more urgent now.

Since joining the 2020 race last month, Biden has remained well above the Democratic scrum, but on Monday he was clearly refuting rivals like Sanders. He is currently one of Biden's most powerful competitors, including here in New Hampshire, which is hosting the inaugural primary of the 2020 nomination contest.

Mr. Sanders appeared to criticize Mr. Biden when he tweeted On Friday, he said "there is no compromise on climate policy." Sanders was due to attend a green New Deal rally in Washington on Monday.

Polls show that combating climate change is one of the main concerns of primary Democratic voters. Biden has generally spearheaded the first Democrat polls, but he faces skepticism from the left of his party over parts of his decades-long record, including criminal justice and human rights law. abortion.

On Monday, he insisted that he has been defending the environment for a long time. He detailed the efforts that he and former President Barack Obama have made to protect the environment, while seeking a balance between tough rhetoric, a more centrist past, and political instincts.

"We need, we need to face this green revolution," he said, "in a rational way, we can do it, allow it, and do it now."

In In an interview with the Associated Press, Biden spoke of the possibility of dissolving technology companies such as Facebook. This remark is a nod to another subject that drives some of the progressive base. Several Democratic presidential candidates, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have vigorously defended the need for more aggressive regulation of large technology companies.

And while he was passing through a crowd of voters shaking hands and pretending to be selfish, Mr. Biden responded somewhat grimly to a reporter's question about tariffs while the trade war between the United States and China intensified.

"The way we must proceed is this: we must have our allies with us," Biden said, criticizing President Trump for his "increase in debt and trade deficit".

"It's not just us," said Biden. "We have to keep the rest of the world together."

He added that "the job should be at the table" and he criticized China for "the way they steal our intellectual property".

"The only ones to pay the price are the farmers and the workers at the moment," Biden said. "It's totally wrong."