Joe Biden's tenure as US President will lead to the "fading" of climate change deniers, according to an environmental expert.
Dr Cara Augustenborg, an Environmental Policy Fellow at University College Dublin and co-host of 'Down To Earth' on Newstalk, believes the next four years will bring a positive change to policies.
President Biden was sworn into office on Wednesday, saying his presidency would be about uniting the nation and urging “every American to join me in this cause.”
He has already signed orders to undo several policies of his predecessor Donald Trump.
This included moves to re-join the Paris Climate accord, a national mask-wearing mandate and to seek re-admission to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
He is also set to block the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would bring oil from Canada to the US.
Speaking during his inauguration speech, President Biden said America needs to respond to a “climate in crisis”.
Dr Augustenborg told Newstalk Breakfast with Susan Keogh that by making climate change a national security issue and moving to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, President Biden is clearly prioritising the issue.
She said: "What's really interesting about President Biden is that in the primaries, his policies were scored an 'F' rating by the youth-led Sunrise Movement, which is a climate NGO.
"He spent three months with his campaign team bring together a lot of well-known people in the climate movement...and created all these new policies with a commitment to spend $1.7 trillion in the next four years on climate and give 40% of that to disadvantaged communities.
"Now we're seeing a huge commitment, he's saying Climate Change is the number one issue to the world and to him.
Dr Augustenborg added that the days of the climate change denier are "clearly fading".
"I think the evidence is so resounding now, it's very hard to argue that climate change isn't happening because we're seeing it happen all around us and the data is being confirmed all around the world," she said.
"Now the issue is more around the nuances of what do we do, how do we address these issues.
"I think you're seeing the arguments from Republicans and maybe people who would have denied climate change in the past is they're becoming more nuanced and they're changing their tune a little bit."
