Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to remind us of the fragility of our planet – the US must act on the climate crisis

Sometimes it takes a catastrophe to remind us of the fragility of our planet and the damage that humankind is doing to it. The “heat dome” over western Canada and the Pacific northwest of the United States has already led to hundreds of deaths and will sadly lead to many more.

With temperatures soaring to an all-time record in British Colombia, this has been billed as a once-in-a-millennium event. But what were events that happened every thousand years, are becoming more commonplace all around the world. Australia has experienced repeated devastating bushfires. Cape Town in South Africa came within a few days of running out of water in 2018. In 2019, Chennai in India suffered a similar crisis.

The link between worsening weather and the climate crisis has become undeniable. The impact of human activity on the global climate has equally become undeniable. But international politics are shifting too slowing in response.

This is an immediate issue for President Biden. He has made clear his own awareness of the threat that the climate crisis poses for the US, but with the Democrats’ wafer-thin control of the Senate – and a reduced presence in the House – he has to persuade and cajole if he is to succeed in getting the administration’s plans through Congress. The US energy lobbying machine is working hard to block him.

As we reported, the president has already scaled back his original $2 trillion infrastructure plan, cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of proposed support for climate initiatives. There are dangers that the administration may find itself further hobbled in the weeks ahead. Politics are politics – and the US system of checks and balances makes decision-making unusually cumbersome. Yet the economic case for action on the climate crisis has long been established, with the Stern Review setting out the costs of inaction back in 2006. If ever there were to be a spur for action, surely it is now.

For what is happening in Canada and the US is one manifestation of something vastly greater. Gradually, achingly slowly, the world’s biggest emitter of carbon dioxide – China – is taking action to curb carbon emissions. So far, it has been reducing the carbon intensity of its output, rather than cutting emissions overall. Rapid economic growth keeps pushing these up. In most other emerging nations, including India, emissions are also rising, but from a much lower base. The developed world needs to cut emissions to compensate for the inevitable and proper increases in countries with much lower living standards. The US must lead.

The best hope now is that the current catastrophe in the Pacific northwest will move the political dial. This is a test case for the effectiveness of both of the administration and of Congress to reach an acceptable outcome. Already much has been conceded in President Biden’s efforts to find a bipartisan agreement. Many would argue too much, for the president is selling his infrastructure plan without explicit climate goals.

Jen Psaki, his press secretary, argues that this plan should be seen as a down payment, with further action to follow: “The president will continue to advocate for, press for, work for even more on the climate as he will in the reconciliation bill and process, moving forward,” she said on National Public Radio yesterday.

A down payment is only worth paying if it secures the deal. For people who have lost property, had their lives disrupted, and in some cases lost their loved ones in this dreadful disaster, it will seem a weak and ineffective response. And the world as a whole will worry that America is led by a weak and ineffective president as it confronts a collective catastrophe.