Bitter US partisan strife proliferates to COP27, hampers climate response
When US President Joe Biden spoke at the COP27 held in Egypt hoping to show the world the image of a global leader on climate action, he faced an international audience with the majority having seen through the US’ lack of reliability in keeping promises, Chinese observers said, after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brought US domestic partisanship to COP27 for political purposes, further damaging the US’ international reputation.
Biden addressed the United Nations climate talks on Friday, stressing American leadership at a time when the country is facing broad criticism for being the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history.
One day ahead of Biden’s planned speech at COP27, Pelosi showed up at the UN global climate summit on Thursday using the international arena to criticize Republicans, saying there has been a disagreement on the climate crisis between the parties.
According to Guardian, Pelosi said Republicans have said, “‘Why are we having this discussion? There is no climate crisis. It’s all a hoax.’ We have to get over that. This is urgent, long overdue.”
Pelosi’s remarks came as the results of the US midterm elections were yet to be finalized, but with Republicans slowly moving closer to taking control of the House of Representatives, which will enable them to block Biden’s legislative agenda, including those on climate actions.
Li Haidong, a professor from the Institute of International Relations at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Friday that it’s clear that Pelosi tried to depict Republicans as the culprit behind the ineffective global response to the climate crisis in order to help Democrats gain more international support and more understanding from domestic voters.
“It’s ironic that Pelosi actually brought American partisan politics to the stage of COP27, which shows that the US has no credibility and US policy is inconsistent and hypocritical on climate actions,” Li said.
“Pelosi’s remarks have damaged the US’ international reputation, but she could not care less. It seems she would do anything to enhance Democrats’ political power,” Li said.
Chinese observers believed that the majority of the international community is fully aware of the US’ inconsistent policy and growing partisan hostility, and many have raised concerns that any commitments Biden makes during COP27 may be hard to realize if Republicans control the House.