With the US presidential election being only days away, Democrat candidate Joe Biden and a certain campaign pledge of his got slammed by Naomi Seibt, a 20-year-old activist from Germany "known as the anti-Greta Thunberg of climate change", the Daily Express reports.
According to the newspaper, it was Biden's "supposed plan to tackle climate change" that caught Seibt's attention, as the Democrat presidential hopeful described climate change as an "existential threat to humanity" that would "actually bake this planet" if left unchecked.
Yet although Biden promised to implement the so-called Green New Deal – which is aimed at decreasing the greenhouse gas emissions across the US and which "calls on the federal government to ensure the US decreases the amount of fossil fuels used" - if he gets elected, Seibt did not seem particularly impressed by his plans.
"The Green New Deal could be the US' economic downfall, which is funny because Mr Biden has been posting about how US President Donald Trump has ruined the economy with his reaction to the coronavirus", she said. "There is Mr Biden who promotes absolute socialism in terms of the climate change debate, even though he has never approached experts on the other side of the debate".
The activist argued that Biden should rather "look at both sides because if you shut everyone else down, you don't even allow for a debate, and then you can't implement such strong economic policies."
"They will spread the message that positive results are coming from the changes, and progress is being made and they'll say now we just have to keep going", she argued. "They will increase taxes massively, waste it on alternative energy sources and that will be dangerous especially in terms of electricity."
At this time, Biden intends to spend $2trillion on his "climate scheme", including the creation of a "carbon pollution-free power sector" by 2035, the newspaper added.