CNN to host climate crisis town hall with Biden administration officials

Senior Biden administration officials this week will answer questions on how President Joe Biden plans to remake US climate policy in a globally broadcast CNN town hall, the network announced Monday.

“CNN Town Hall: The Climate Crisis” will air Friday at 10 p.m. ET. It coincides with this week’s celebration of Earth Day and will come the day after the Biden administration’s conference on global warming. The town hall will feature special presidential envoy for climate John Kerry, White House national climate advisor Gina McCarthy, US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm answering questions about the Biden-Harris climate policy. CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash will moderate.

In addition to video-submitted questions, a small, socially distanced audience will be present to ask the four administration officials about the Biden-Harris administration’s remaking of US climate policy following the Donald Trump presidency.

The town hall will air on CNN, CNN en Español and CNN International; stream live with a log-in to a cable provider on CNNgo, CNN.com’s homepage and across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android and simulcast on SiriusXM Channels 116, 454 and 795. The town hall can be viewed on CNNgo at CNN.com/go on your desktop, smartphone and iPad, and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Android TV, Chromecast, Roku and Samsung Smart TV. The special will also be available on demand to subscribers via cable/satellite systems, CNNgo platforms and CNN mobile apps.

From the outset, the Biden administration has made climate a key focus.

Before taking office, Biden in December announced his climate team, in a historic display of the then-President-elect’s effort to prioritize his administration’s response to the climate crisis.

“I’m pleased to announce a team that will lead my administration’s ambitious plan to address the existential threat of our time, climate change,” Biden said at the time.

And on his first day in office, Biden took executive actions to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, cancel the Keystone XL pipeline and direct agencies to review and reverse more than 100 Trump actions on the environment.

Just a week later, Biden signed several more executive actions related to the climate crisis, including one directing the secretary of the Interior to pause on entering into new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or offshore waters.

Since the early days of his administration, Biden and other administration officials have emphasized that the White House is taking a “whole of government” approach to climate change. They’ve also underscored that they believe the President’s actions will help spur job growth, and categorized people working in industries vulnerable to job loss, such as coal miners, under their umbrella of environmental justice.

“It’s about coming to the moment to deal with this maximum threat that we exist with as now facing us, climate change, with a greater sense of urgency,” he said at a January signing ceremony. “In my view, we’ve already waited too long to deal with this climate crisis. We can’t wait any longer.”

This story has been updated to reflect a new air time.