President Biden traveled to Massachusetts Wednesday to outline new efforts to combat the climate crisis. Biden spoke from a former coal plant in Somerset, which is being converted into a plant to make supplies for offshore wind farms. Biden said he would give $2.3 billion to FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to help communities become more resilient to heat waves, drought and wildfire. Biden called the current state of the climate an “emergency” but stopped short of a formal declaration.

President Joe Biden: “This is an emergency. An emergency. And I will — I will look at it that way. I said last week, and I’ll say it again loud and clear: As president, I’ll use my executive powers to combat climate — the climate crisis in the absence of congressional actions.”

Biden’s speech came as more than 100 million people in the United States are under heat advisories, Europe suffers from record heat, and searing drought across much of Africa is leading to widespread crop failures and hunger.