Biden: Decade key on climate change
GLASGOW, Scotland – In a marked change of tone for U.S. leaders, President Joe Biden acknowledged at a U.N. summit Monday that the United States and other developed nations bore much of the responsibility for climate change, and said actions taken this decade to contain global warming will be decisive in preventing future generations from suffering.
“None of us can escape the worst that is yet to come if we fail to seize this moment,” Biden declared.
The president treated the already visible crisis for the planet – flooding, volatile weather, droughts and wildfires – as a unique opportunity to reinvent the global economy. Standing before world leaders gathered in Scotland, he sought to portray the enormous costs of limiting carbon emissions as a chance to create jobs by transitioning to renewable energy and electric automobiles.
Yet he also apologized for former President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Agreement and the role of the U.S. and other wealthy countries in contributing to climate change.
“Those of us who are responsible for much of the deforestation and all of the problems we have so far,” Biden said, have “overwhelming obligations” to the poorer nations that account for few of the emissions yet are paying a price as the planet has grown hotter.
As for Trump’s action, he said: “I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact the United States, the last administration, pulled out of the Paris Accords and put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit.”
The urgent moment is crashing into global and domestic politics. Biden administration officials have scolded China for failing to commit more to curbing carbon emissions, while the president is still trying to nail down his own climate investments with Congress.
The summit is billed as essential to putting into action the 2015 Paris climate accord, which Biden rejoined after becoming president this year.
But Biden and his administration face obstacles in prodding the U.S. and other nations to act fast enough on climate, abroad as at home.
Rather than a quick fix, “Glasgow is the beginning of this decade race, if you will,” Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, told reporters Sunday.
As the summit opens, the United States is still struggling to get some of the world’s biggest climate polluters – China, Russia and India – to join the U.S. and its allies in stronger pledges to burn far less coal, gas and oil and to move to cleaner energy.