After zipping around Rome for a Vatican visit with a gas-guzzling, 85-vehicle motorcade, President Biden then traveled to Scotland to discuss climate change with other world leaders at the COP26 in Glasgow. A key theme of the meeting was urgency: CNN called the meeting the “most important climate talks in years,” because there is “little time to spare” before the planet warms beyond human repair.
"To reach net zero by 2050, we're going to need to mobilize trillions of dollars in financing to harness both private and public sector resources," Biden said Tuesday in support of the "Build Back Better World Initiative."
What the President was accomplishing in Scotland was promising higher costs for gasoline in our automobiles and natural gas to heat our homes, Sen. James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) told the “Washington Watch” radio program this week.
"He's directly pointing towards 98% of Americans and saying, I'm going to raise your prices even more than they've already gone up," Lankford warned. “And we've all seen the inflation rate since [Biden] took office, so he's going to Scotland and saying, If they thought it was bad, wait until they see what's coming next.”
The push for 8 billion humans beings on the planet to embrace wind turbines and solar power, based on fear of a warming planet, hinges on forcing people away from fossil fuels. At the press conference in Rome, Biden was reminded by a New York Times reporter that raising the price on gasoline will force people to "consume" less of it.
"So why not allow even middle-class people around the world," asked economics reporter Jim Tankersley, "to pay more for gasoline in the hope that they would consume fewer fossil fuels and emit less?"
"Well," Biden replied, "because they have to get to work. They have to get in an automobile, turn on the key, get their kids to school. The school buses have to run. That's the reason why."
Biden went on to admit that gasoline topping $3 a gallon has a "profound impact on working-class families," but he went on to promise reporters the U.S. will cut carbon emissions in half by 2030.
In the radio interview, Lankford drew parallels to Biden’s attendance at the climate change summit to President Barack Obama representing our nation at the Paris climate accords, when the former president made promises on behalf of the country and ignored Congress.
"I don't know a person that doesn't want clean air and clean water, and we are stewards of God's creation,” the senator said. “But what he's talking about is not just stewardship. It's going to directly affect those in need and in poverty."
