Maeve Higgins: Joe Biden's response to climate change is not enough. But it's a start

In the US, ground-up activism has forged the Green New Deal — a last-gasp chance to reverse climate change

Alexandria Villaseñor, right, with Greta Thunberg at a 2019 protest in New York. Ms Villaseñor was 13 and skipping school to take part in such protests when Maeve Higgins first met her. Picture: Richard Drew/AP

I first met Alexandria Villaseñor when she was 13 and had been skipping school every Friday for months. Instead of going to school, she was taking the subway to midtown Manhattan and protesting, often alone, outside of the United Nations headquarters. No matter how insane the weather was in the winter, she sat bundled up in scarves and mittens holding a simple sign saying ‘School Strike 4 Climate’ and ‘COP 24 failed us’. 

The latter referred to the latest annual UN gathering of almost every country on the planet for another global climate summit — these are called COPs — which stands for Conference of the Parties.