Biden: new spending boosts US resolve against climate change

Sharm El-Sheikh, Nov. 11 (PTI/AP): President Joe Biden, speaking on Friday at an annual global summit on climate change, said new spending on clean energy initiatives has cemented his country’s commitment to fighting global warming.

The United States government is putting our money where our mouth is,” he said.

Biden said the spending, part of broader economic legislation he signed into law this year, will “change the paradigm and ensure the US hits its target for reducing emissions by 2030.

His attendance at the UN climate conference, known as COP27, in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh is the first stop on an around-the-world trip that will also take him to a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in Cambodia and a Group of 20 summit meeting for leaders of the world’s largest economies in Bali, Indonesia.

Biden boarded Air Force One late on Thursday buoyed by a stronger-than-expected showing by the Democratic Party in Tuesday’s midterm elections, earlier congressional passage of the largest climate investment in US history and Russian military setbacks on the Ukrainian battlefield.

At the climate conference, Biden discussed a new supplemental rule that will crack down on methane emissions, expanding on a similar regulation his administration released last year.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming.

Biden also spotlighted one of his key domestic successes the Democrats’ massive health care and climate change bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

The US commitment of some USD 375 billion over a decade to fight climate change gives Biden greater leverage to press other nations to fulfill their pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and shift the global economy toward cleaner energy sources.

Biden will be in a far different position from last year’s gathering, which came about during a particularly unhappy stretch in the bill’s tortuous path to passage.

That summit resulted in additional global commitments to meet temperature targets agreed to in the Paris Climate Accord, which Biden rejoined after his predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled the US from the deal.

It’s a very good sign that President Biden is coming to this COP (summit), said German special envoy Jennifer Morgan. I think it reassures countries, people that the United States at the highest level takes this issue incredibly seriously. And we need that.

Others were not as optimistic.

Joe Biden comes to COP27 and makes new promises but his old promises have not even been fulfilled, Mohamed Adow, a veteran climate analyst and director of Power Shift Africa, said in an email.

He is like a salesman selling goods with endless small print.

Biden also argued that good climate policy is good economic policy, and call on all major emitting countries to align their ambition to the international goal of trying to limit future global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the White House.

But even with these fresh efforts, America and the world have a long way to go to meet emissions targets that scientists hope will contain global warming.

And the political will for more investment is shrinking.

It remained to be seen whether Biden would address the item top of mind at the climate talks: loss and damage.

That’s international negotiations language for asking rich countries like the United States, the top historic polluting nation, to pay what are essentially reparations for damages caused to poorer vulnerable nations that don’t emit much heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

The US in the past has opposed even talking about the issue, but has softened its stance and has agreed to discussions. Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, has mentioned the issue in speeches. However, the US doesn’t want liability to be part of any deal and when it comes to paying, Congress and the public have been reluctant to embrace many types of climate aid and this is the most controv