Former Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday on CNN the Chinese coronavirus crisis was an “opportunity” to enact major climate change programs found in the Green New Deal.

“We have an opportunity now to take, in a recovery act, a real recovery,” Biden said. “We can fundamentally change the science relating to global warming.”

The former vice president hosted a question and answer special about the virus, spending most of his time talking about the way America could use the crisis to enact their leftist energy policies.

Biden recalled the Great Depression, noting former President Franklin Roosevelt used that crisis to enact dramatic government programs, something he also wanted to do.

“It’s like the New Deal,” he said. “Think of every great act that — every great change that has taken place. It’s come out of a crisis.”

Biden proposed a similar dramatic surge in government spending for green energy infrastructure, including 550,000 charging stations for electric cars, windmills and solar panels, as well as spending for better battery technology.

Biden said the coronavirus crisis would lead the American people to recognize the need for change, especially for workers and Americans suffering the effects of “systemic racism.”

“It’s like the Band-Aid has been ripped off,” Biden said.

The former vice president’s hat-tip to the Green New Deal comes as prominent leftist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has criticized his climate change platform.

“I don’t think that the vice president has a climate change policy that is sufficient right now,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a recent interview.