By Anders Lorenzen

President Biden used Earth Day to ramp up his administrations commitment on tackling climate change, protecting the environment and investing in clean energy technologies.

Most significantly the president who is well underway in his November presidential re-election campaign could announce a new programme ‘Solar for All’ which he announced $7 billion in grants for residential solar project that is estimated power nearly a million low-income households.

Winning over voters

Biden made the announcement as he addressed a crowd at Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, Virginia, to the presence of several key Democratic climate advocates including Bernie Sanders who unsuccessfully ran against Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic Presidential nomination. The Democratic president who have come under fire for progressive members of the Democratic Party for not doing enough to tackle climate change  also announced that applications are open to join the American Climate Corps, a program to prepare young people for jobs in climate-related industries, designed to bring young people on board who are the demographic of voters most critical about his focus and achievements in his first term so far.

Critics may accuse Biden for recycling policies as the $7 billion of solar funding through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Solar for All grant competition was included in Biden’s landmark climate change law, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) which was adopted nearly two years ago in August 2022.

The White House has calculated the programme will create 200,000 jobs and save households that are part of it $400 per year. Through the initiative, the Biden Administration aims to involve lower-income Americans in the energy transition.

American Climate Corps will launch through this website where applicants will be able to see 2,000 open positions in 36 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico with the first class starting in June. According to the White House the aims of the initiative is to put more than 20,000 young people to work by training them, for example, to install solar panels, operate LiDAR cameras that detect methane emissions and restore mangrove ecosystems. participants will have access to pre-apprenticeship training through a partnership with the North America’s Building Trades Unions and a streamlined pathway to federal government jobs.

Biden said: “I will put tens of thousands of young people to work at the forefront of our climate resilience and clean energy future.”

You can watch the president’s full speech below: