In Louisiana, hundreds of thousands are still without electricity due to storm damage. Fires are raging in California. US President Biden warns of the consequences of climate change after hurricane “Ida”.
After devastating floods in the northeastern United States, President Joe Biden warned of the consequences of climate change with drastic words during a visit to the disaster area. The rapidly progressing changes in the climate correspond to the “red alert,” said Biden. “The country and the world are in danger. This is not an exaggeration. It is a fact,” said Biden on Tuesday (local time) during a visit to the New York borough of Queens. In the southern state of Louisiana, around 400,000 households were still without electricity nine days after Hurricane “Ida”. 15,000 firefighters fought forest and bush fires in western California.
“Climate change is an existential threat to our lives, to our economy – and the threat is here,” said Biden. The situation will not improve on its own, because the changes in the climate are advancing “at an unbelievable rate”. Biden spoke of a “turning point where we will either act or we will be in real trouble. Our children will be in real trouble.” Now it must be prevented that it gets worse, he demanded.
Serious damage caused by “Ida” in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana
Biden announced that he would therefore also take part in the UN World Climate Conference in November in Glasgow, Scotland. However, it initially remained open whether he wanted to travel in person or be connected online. Biden has made the fight against climate change one of the main goals of his government.
Storms as a result of hurricane “Ida” had led to heavy rainfall with catastrophic flooding in the northeastern United States last week. Dozens of people died. The states of New Jersey and New York were hardest hit. Before that, “Ida” had already wreaked havoc in the southern states of Louisiana and Mississippi, killing several people.
“Ida” came from the Gulf of Mexico at the end of August as a four-out-of-five hurricane hit the coast southwest of New Orleans and only weakened overland.
Government wants to spend billions to deal with the damage
With a view to the fires in the western United States, Biden emphasized during an inspection of storm damage in the state of New Jersey: “Every part of the country is hit by extreme weather conditions.” He wants to get an idea of the situation in California in the coming days. According to a situation report on Tuesday, around 15,500 firefighters were deployed in the state to fight 14 major forest and bush fires as well as smaller sources of fire. Since the beginning of the year, there has already been a fire there on an area of a good 8,000 square kilometers. That corresponds to about nine times the area of Berlin.
Meanwhile, the Budget Office asked Congress to provide at least an additional $ 24 billion in a supplementary budget to cover damage caused by natural disasters. The agency estimated that the damage caused by Hurricane Ida alone would cost the US government at least ten billion US dollars. The remaining funds are needed to cope with the costs of natural disasters in the past 18 months. It was about the time before “Ida”, so among other things about the consequences of the hurricanes “Laura” and “Delta” as well as the fires in the west, it said.
Whether and to what extent Congress will approve the government’s motion is still open. Biden’s Democrats control the House of Representatives, but in the Senate they are likely to depend on the approval of some Republicans.
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