‘This is code red': Biden warns of climate change threat, calls it 'everybody's crisis'

During his visit to Queens, N.Y., on Tuesday as he took stock of the damage caused by Hurricane Ida, US President Joe Biden warned against the threats posed by climate change as he toured the devastation caused in the hard-hit New York borough of Queens. Prior to this visit, he visited Manville, New Jersey. The world faces a "code red" on climate change danger, Biden told reporters, adding everyone needs to listen to the scientists, the economists and the national security experts to mitigate the crisis. “They all tell us this is code red,” the US President said. "The nation and the world are in peril. That's not hyperbole. That is a fact," he added.   

"This is everybody's crisis," US President Joe Biden said in his speech on Tuesday. "These disasters aren't going to stop. They're only going to come with more frequency and ferocity,” he warned. 

Furthermore, Biden stressed that the systemic upgrading and hardening of America’s infrastructure was the urgent need as he brought focus on his giant infrastructure spending Bill that included major funding for green economy projects. 

The US President pledged robust federal funding to the Northeastern and Gulf states battered by Hurricane Ida and wildfires to ramp up the rebuilding efforts. He stressed that the calamities were a reminder that the “climate crisis” has arrived. “These extreme storms, and the climate crisis, are here,” Biden said in a White House speech. “We must be better prepared. We need to act.” As he visited New Jersey and the state of New York earlier today to survey damage in Manville, New Jersey, and Queens, days after his Louisiana visit, he warned that such extreme natural calamities require urgent human intervention and that the threat of climate change must be taken more seriously. 

"I think we've all seen, even the climate skeptics are seeing, that this really does matter. And it's not just whether or not people who are just trying to get by in these homes in these alleys here working their butts off do well — it's people in high towers along the shore will find that as this rain and all this change takes place in the groundwater, the buildings are actually beginning to tilt. Hundred-story buildings. This goes so far beyond what anybody is willing to speak to up to now," Biden said in his remarks from Queens, New York as he surveyed the damage from hurricane Ida, and met with the grieving families. 

Labelling the disaster’s impact on the residents as an “eye-opener”, Biden said that the intensity of the damage caused in the neighborhoods, loss to the families, and the tedious efforts by the first responders just goes to show how badly the natural calamities can impact the communities. He lamented the mammoth scale of destruction and pain from the devastating storm as he alerted people about climate change. Ida, as per the weather forecasters, was the fifth-most powerful storm to strike the US sustaining maximum winds of 150 mph (240 kph).

$14 billion for 'unmet needs' 

Biden called on the US Congress to appropriate approximately $14 billion in funding for recovery to the “unmet needs” from natural disasters. He pledged $10 billion for the Hurricane Ida rebuilding. Mamaroneck, New York, Mayor Tom Murphy informed the US president that homes had submerged in 12 feet of floodwater and were destroyed, several families were rendered without power supply, and have been displaced due to Ida. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told the President that it might take several months to rebuild. New York Governor Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, called Hurricane Ida a “cataclysmic weather event” at a state presser, as he stressed that New York was in for a long haul in building back up. While the death toll remains at 27, at least 4 are missing as search operation continues, according to reports.