Joe Biden’s plans to combat climate crisis have – predictably – provoked GOP backlash

Republican attacks, amplified by Fox News, have been met with a planned response from climate envoy John Kerry

The Democrat in the White House may be different, but the attacks are very familiar. Joe Biden's early blitz to confront the climate crisis has provoked a hostile Republican backlash eerily similar to the opposition that stymied Barack Obama 12 years ago. Once again, efforts to reduce planet-heating emissions are being assailed as radical, job killing and elitist.

Republican lawmakers in Congress have denounced Biden's flurry of executive orders on climate and have even introduced legislation to bypass the president and approve the contentious Keystone XL oil pipeline. Republican-led states are also joining the fray with Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, who is vowing to use the courts to block Biden's move to halt oil and gas drilling on public lands. Texas is going to protect the oil and gas industry from any type of hostile attack launched from Washington DC," Abbott said.