In the Senate, meanwhile, Mr Biden has failed to persuade holdouts in his own party to vote for his landmark $1.7 trillion Build Back Better bill, which contains about $555 billion for climate provisions, including $320 billion in tax incentives for producers and purchasers of wind, solar and nuclear power, inducements intended to speed up a transition away from oil, gas and coal.

Some environmentalists speculate that the Biden administration has sought to use its executive authority sparingly, doing enough to strengthen major climate priorities but not so much as to put off moderate legislators whose votes will be needed to pass the bill.

Sources told The Washington Post that a White House review of federal coal leasing was paused to avoid alienating Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who has a pivotal role in the evenly divided Senate and whose state of West Virginia is one of the biggest producers of coal in the country.

‘We need climate action now’

The president has also been hamstrung by legislation at state-level.

In June, a federal judge in Louisiana sided with Republican attorneys general from 13 states who argued that Mr Biden lacked the legal authority to pause new oil and gas leases.

“Objectively, he over-promised and under-delivered,” Kevin Book, managing director of Washington-based research firm ClearView Energy Partners, told the New York Times.

Climate, conservation, Indigenous, environmental justice and community groups have petitioned the Biden administration to use its executive authority to phase out oil and gas production on public lands and oceans.

“Biden squandered precious time seeking climate action from a broken Congress,” added Mr McKinnon. “We need executive action now to meet the climate emergency with the urgency it demands, starting with ending the fossil fuel extraction the president controls.”