More than 500 days into his presidency, Joe Biden's hope for saving the Earth from the most devastating effects of climate change may not quite be dead.
But it's not far from it.
A Supreme Court ruling on Thursday not only limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate climate pollution by power plants but also suggests the court is poised to block other efforts by Biden and federal agencies to limit the climate-wrecking fumes emitted by oil, gas and coal.
It's a blow to Biden's commitment to slash emissions in the few years scientists say are left to stave off worse and deadlier levels of global warming. And it's a sign, to Democrats at home and allies abroad, of the dwindling options remaining for Biden to reverse the legacy of former president Donald Trump, who mocked the science of climate change.
Trump's three Supreme Court appointees provided half of the affirmative votes in Thursday's 6-3 ruling.
After the ruling, a veteran Democratic lawmaker acknowledged he saw little hope of Congress producing any meaningful climate legislation, either.
“There's no easy fix from Congress from this mess,” Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse said. The foreign allies whom Biden once spoke of leading to a global clean-power transformation are wondering if the US can even lead itself.
The climate decision in some ways “may have broader impacts at least on the European populace that this is a country that, A: can't get things done and B: is going in a really bizarre direction domestically,” said Max Bergmann, director of the Europe programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies.
And in a Houston neighbourhood entering hurricane season, a man who had spent four decades advocating for the Black communities and other communities of colour and poorer communities hit hardest by pollution and the record heat, cold, floods and storms of climate change reacted to the ruling like many others did — saying salvaging climate efforts depends on Biden now, and his willingness to act and lead.