President Joe Biden mentioned Sunday there have been loads of climate-denying “dog-faced pony troopers” on the market, however their numbers have been dwindling because the world took severe steps to handle the local weather disaster.
The president was in Vietnam after the Group of 20 summit in New Delhi, India. His uncommon remark got here amid a query about wealthy nations failing to achieve an settlement to part out fossil fuels in the course of the occasion this month, though Biden famous nations had agreed to dramatically enhance renewable power assets.
“There’s lots of mendacity, dog-faced pony troopers on the market about world warming,” the president mentioned, referencing a traditional film. “However not anymore. All the a sudden they’re all realizing it’s an issue.”
“And there’s nothing like seeing the sunshine,” Biden added.
The president went on to say that regardless that the G20 hadn’t made steps to restrict the manufacturing of fossil fuels, nations had, the truth is, made strides towards reaching some type of settlement earlier than the United Nations’ annual local weather summit in Dubai later this 12 months.
“All kidding apart … Did you ever suppose you’d be sitting at a G20 convention the place everybody was preoccupied with the notion of worldwide warming?” Biden mentioned. “Did you ever suppose that?”
Environmental teams have been lower than happy, regardless of the president’s assurances. Greenpeace Worldwide mentioned the G20 leaders had “collectively did not ship something significant on local weather change this 12 months.”
“Fossil fuels are killing us, and the G20’s reckless failure to behave will probably be measured in additional lives and livelihoods misplaced,” Tracy Carey, world local weather politics skilled on the group, mentioned in an announcement. “Leaders failed to achieve settlement on the part out of coal, oil and fuel. Additionally they made a timid dedication to triple renewables, however solely by ‘current targets and insurance policies.’”
Biden has invoked the weird diss earlier than. Whereas campaigning for the presidency in 2020, he referred to as a voter a “mendacity dog-face pony soldier.” The president has defined that his brother preferred to make use of strains from previous films and mentioned he believed the expression got here from a John Wayne movie. However some say he’s in all probability referencing a 1952 Tyrone Energy movie referred to as “Pony Soldier.”
Whatever the origin, Biden’s staffers have defined the phrase has been utilized by him in jest and that he’s “made it loads of instances earlier than.”