Who is Gina McCarthy? Meet The Woman Behind POTUS Biden's Climate Agenda

Gina McCarthy, the current White House National Climate Adviser, has never been worried about anything she can't manage.

Trump Administration

McCarthy watched as the Trump administration tried to reverse her legacy role as the Environmental Protection Agency president under Barack Obama, the Clean Power Initiative. About the reality that glaciers were disappearing sooner than science expected, seas were warming at an unprecedented pace, and the United States was being battered by deadly hurricanes and wildfires, Trump was doing the absolute opposite of what was needed to solve the problem. He pulled out of the Paris climate deal, cut environmental protections, and placed fossil fuel lobbyists in places of influence in the environmental field.

For many climate scientists, all of this was catastrophic. McCarthy, on the other hand, was not discouraged. "Stop stressing about this nonsense if you can't do anything about it! In 2019, a characteristically frank McCarthy told HBO host Bill Maher in her Boston accent, "Let's all see what we can do!"

Back in Charge

McCarthy is back in charge four years after ordering an EPA staff shaken by Trump's victory to "sit your asses in your chairs" and survive the storm. McCarthy said on a panel just days before being called Biden's latest climate czar that "it's time to get our Anthony Fauci of the environment," restoring science and truth to the EPA and other agencies.

She is currently in charge of supplying the public with straightforward, science-based knowledge on climate change and pressing the whole government to respond.

Her confidence, particularly in the midst of a massive climate crisis, was one aspect that many people liked about her latest VOX interview.

She told the media outlet, "These days, we have armies of people who care about climate change, even more than we did 40 years ago." "Who isn't only depending on us but also doing their own job, and it'll be a wonderful opportunity for forwarding progress."

It isn't going to be quick. There are several things beyond McCarthy's reach that will decide if she is successful, such as whether Congress approves a bold infrastructure package that prioritizes clean energy or whether the courts strike down ambitious climate regulations.

Related Article: Biden To Overhaul Offices to Promote Environmental Justice

Who is Gina McCarthy?

McCarthy, a lifelong bureaucrat who spent the bulk of her career in city and state governments in New England before moving to the federal government, was born in Brighton, Massachusetts, in 1954. In the early 1980s, her first government position wasn't in the environment; it was a public health officer in Canton, a Boston suburb.

Canton's Health Agent

She worked as Canton's health agent while still completing graduate school and receiving just $19,000 a year. According to a 2013 E&E post, one of her first major experiments happened in 1982, when a Canton barn containing old electronics and chemicals caught fire, spewing a peculiar smelling blue-green smoke. McCarthy partnered with the local fire department to evacuate the homes in the area, fearing that people would be exposed to harmful pollutants.

McCarthy has said she is inspired by a shared thread: people deserve to live well, whether it was her early job fighting toxic waste or her later work with the Massachusetts state government on air quality issues. McCarthy joked in a 2009 interview with her alma mater, Tufts University, that she was a "terrible bureaucrat" because she worried for people.

Praise from Colleagues

She was lauded by those who worked with her, whether they be fellow elected officials or Massachusetts corporate executives she was charged with overseeing, for being forthright, constructive, and open, particularly when demonstrating to industry leaders that the state was enacting new environmental legislation they didn't like.

McCarthy began her almost 20-year career in the Massachusetts state government in 1985. She rose through the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs' ranks' undersecretary of strategy under numerous Republican governors.

Hand Picked by Romney

She was hand-picked by then-Gov. Mitt Romney (now a sitting US senator from Utah) and Foy to help oversee a newly created Office of Commonwealth Growth in the early 2000s. The office acted as a forerunner to McCarthy's new role in the White House in that it brought together various government departments to collaborate on job creation and climate change.

She and her team decided to learn about housing and transit growth in a more strategic manner. Romney and Foy aimed to minimize sprawl in Massachusetts and promote more compact and energy-efficient growth in metropolitan and suburban areas. The office approved economic planning programs while still looking at the environmental consequences. It planned to reconsider road construction as well as how to persuade more residents to take public transit.

Legacy

McCarthy and Biden's actions over the next four years would have far-reaching implications. The research is strong on the grave effects of climate change, and the short time we have to minimize biomass, methane, and other greenhouse gas emissions before things escalate. Even though US emissions dropped 10% in 2020 due to the pandemic, the Rhodium Community believes that we still have a long way to go to reach the Paris Agreement's new 2025 goal of reducing emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels.

ALSO READ: Biden First Day: POTUS Commits to 'Global Climate Initiative' as US Rejoins Paris Climate Accords

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