Participants in the summit include Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among many others.
Italy’s Draghi says Biden presidency represents ‘complete change’ on climate issue
Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi became the latest world leader to note the contrast in Biden’s interest in combating climate change with that of his predecessor, Donald Trump.
“I want to begin by thanking President Biden for his leadership in taking this initiative,” Draghi said. “It’s a complete change. Now, we are confident that together we will win this challenge.”
Draghi noted that his sentiment was similar to that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who spoke earlier.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also weighed in as she took her turn at the summit shortly after Draghi.
“It is so good to have the U.S. back on our side in the fight against climate change,” she said.
During his remarks, Draghi also argued that the emergence from the coronavirus pandemic provides an opportunity.
“The fiscal plans we are designing to help our countries recover from covid-19 offer a unique opportunity,” he said. “We can transform our economies and pursue a greener and more inclusive growth model in Europe.”
Independent analysis says U.S. commitment on cutting greenhouse gas emissions falls short of goal
White House officials said the new U.S. commitment on greenhouse gas emissions is consistent with the goal of keeping global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, but an independent analysis by the nonprofit Climate Action Tracker suggests it still falls short of that goal.
America would have to cut its carbon output by between 57 and 63 percent at least to avert that level of warming and meet Biden’s own 2050 climate target, the scientists projected. Biden has pledged to reach net-zero carbon emissions by mid-century.
The U.S. climate pledge is less ambitious than the European Union’s, which has committed to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions 55 percent compared to 1990 levels by the end of the decade, as well as Britain’s. Using 1990 as a baseline, the United States now intends to cut its emissions by between 41 and 44 percent by 2030.
New Climate Institute analyst Gustavo De Vivero, whose group helps put the Climate Action Tracker together, said the new pledge “is certainly a significant step forward in the right direction.” The group suggests Biden would have to adopt much bolder policies, such as phasing out the sale of gasoline-powered cars and SUVs by 2030, to meet the new target.
Putin says climate fight can ‘unite’ the international community
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke of the need for unity at the Biden administration’s climate summit, suggesting that the global fight for carbon neutrality “should certainly unite the efforts of the international community as a whole.”
The Russian leader reiterated a pledge he had made on Wednesday during a nationwide address that his country would significantly reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. “I’m confident that despite Russia’s size, its geography, climate and economic structure, this task is achievable,” he said.
“We shouldn’t forget ... as compared to the 1990 level, Russia has reduced its greenhouse gas emissions to a greater extent than many other countries,” he said, adding that Russian emissions had dropped by half during that period.
When he spoke on Wednesday, Putin had said he wanted to keep Russia’s greenhouse gas emissions to be less than the European Union’s over the next 30 years. The E.U.’s 27 member states currently emit roughly twice as much as Russia does.
But the European Union has roughly three times the population of Russia, and it has committed to far more ambitious climate-change targets, including a pledge for carbon neutrality by 2050.
The Russian leader’s appearance did get off the an inauspicious start, however, amid apparent technical difficulties, with Putin sitting in silence for almost two minutes after being introduced repeatedly by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Germany’s Merkel says she’s ‘delighted’ to see United States taking a leadership role again
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had a frosty relationship with President Donald Trump, made clear Thursday as she spoke at the global climate summit that she is happy that Biden is in the White House.
“I’m delighted to see that the United States is back to work together with us in climate politics, because there can be no doubt about the world needing your contribution,” she said, stressing that U.S. leadership is essential to reaching ambitious goals globally.
Merkel said that Biden had sent “a very clear and important message to the international community.”
“Thank you for this, and thank you for organizing this summit,” she said. “This is a herculean task because this is nothing short of a complete transformation, a complete change of the way we do business.”
Japan announces a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 46 percent by 2030 compared with 2013 levels
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga announced Thursday that his country is setting a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a benchmark reduction of 46 percent by 2030 compared with 2013 levels.
“Japan is ready to demonstrate its leadership for worldwide decarbonization,” Suga said at a virtual climate summit convened by the Biden administration shortly after he announced the new targets.
“Global decarbonization . . . cannot be achieved by the efforts of one country alone. It is a challenge that requires a whole international community to be united,” Suga added.
Japan had previously been aiming for a 26 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, a target that was criticized as far too modest for the world’s third-biggest economy and fifth-largest emitter of carbon dioxide.
Climate groups had a muted reaction to the 46 percent target on Thursday. In a statement, the Japan Climate Initiative (JCI) said the decision showed “political leadership toward the realization of a decarbonized society.”
But the JCI, which is made up of almost 300 Japanese companies, local governments, research institutions and private groups, noted the 46 percent target was just 1 percentage point higher than the minimum their members had requested.
“We expect the government to increase the target to 50 percent without delay,” the group said in a statement, noting that such a goal would be more in line with those set by the United States and the European Union.
Sam Annesley, executive director at Greenpeace Japan, said Suga did not pledge to stop exporting coal-fired power plants and related technologies and that without this step, the Japanese government’s other moves would be “far from sufficient.” Suga had been widely expected to make such a pledge.
Annesley called the 46 percent target “a paltry move compared to the large increases in reduction targets by other countries.”
Canada’s Trudeau pledges to ‘raise our climate ambition’
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau became the latest world leader to announce that his country would seek to up its game, relaying at Biden’s climate summit that Canada is prepared to “raise our climate ambition.”
Trudeau announced a target of reducing its 2005 emission levels by 40 percent to 45 percent by 2030.
“We will continually strengthen our plan and take even more actions on our journey to net zero by 2050,” Trudeau pledged.
“If all governments and Indigenous peoples and different sectors can come together and work together, then we should be able to find solutions and create real change,” Trudeau added. “And that is why we’re here today.”
Xi reiterates China’s pledge to ‘peak’ emissions by 2030, go carbon neutral before 2060
Despite the ongoing political divide between their nations, China’s Xi Jinping was the first national leader to speak at Biden’s climate summit on Thursday.
But the Chinese president stood out from some of his peers by not making a new pledge and reiterating only Beijing’s previously stated targets at the summit: that China would “strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.”
The targets, first announced by Chinese officials last year, are ambitious, but they put the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter behind many other developed countries that have pledged to reduce emissions much sooner.
Xi, speaking Thursday, emphasized that China’s dramatic development means achieving carbon neutrality in such a short time frame is still difficult.
“China has committed to move from carbon peak to carbon neutrality in a much shorter time span than what might take many developed countries, and that requires extraordinarily hard efforts from China,” Xi said.
The Chinese leader also said that his government would strictly control coal power projects, one of the greatest sources of carbon dioxide in China.
China was the top emitter of carbon dioxide in the world in 2018, according to the Global Carbon Project, putting almost twice as much of the gas into the atmosphere as the United States and three times as much as the European Union.
“China looks forward to working with the international community, including the United States, to jointly advance global environmental governance,” Xi said on Thursday. “The Chinese civilization has always valued harmony between man and nature.”
U.N. chief: ‘We are at the verge of the abyss’
U.N. Secretary General António Guterres implored global leaders Thursday to summon more urgency in their efforts to slow climate change, saying the world is “racing toward the threshold of catastrophe” unless it moves more quickly to slow the Earth’s warming.
Guterres noted the past decade was the hottest on record, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere have reached disturbing levels, and scorching temperatures and epic wildfires have become more common and more intense.
“We are at the verge of the abyss,” he said. “We must make sure the next step is in the right direction.”
Guterres called on leaders to put a price on carbon emissions, end fossil fuel subsidies, ramp up investments in renewable energy and stop financing coal in the years ahead. He also insisted that recovery packages in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic must not lock in only more fossil fuel infrastructure.
“So far, only 18 to 24 percent of pandemic recovery spending is expected to contribute to mitigating emissions, reducing air pollution or strengthening natural capital,” Guterres said. “We cannot use these resources to lock in policies that burden them with a mountain of debt on a broken planet.”
Boris Johnson says combating climate change not just about ‘bunny hugging’
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson credited Biden for “returning the United States to the front rank of the fight against climate change” as he delivered remarks at the summit, stressing the need for “technological solutions that humanity is going to need.”
Johnson also emphasized that combating climate change presents economic opportunities.
“It’s vital for all of us to show that this is not all about some expensive, politically correct agreement of bunny hugging,” he said. “This is about growth and jobs.”
Johnson credited Biden for framing the issue that way and borrowed one of his key phrases for post-pandemic recovery: “build back better.”
“I want to leave you with the thought that we can build back better from this pandemic by building back greener,” Johnson said.
Biden presides over virtual meeting from East Room of White House
Biden is presiding over the climate summit from a semicircular table in the East Room of the White House, flanked by socially distanced Secretary of State Antony Blinken and John F. Kerry, the U.S. special presidential envoy for climate.
Video feeds of multiple global leaders appear on screens in front of them, with the largest focused on the current speaker.
Biden calls climate change the ‘existential crisis of our time’ as he opens two-day summit
Biden unveiled his ambitious goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the United States by roughly half by the end of the decade but said Thursday that “the existential crisis of our time” will require a much larger international effort.
“The signs are unmistakable. The science is undeniable. And the cost of inaction keeps mounting,” Biden said as he opened a two-day virtual summit dedicated to confronting climate change. The effort is a symbolic reversal of President Donald Trump’s policies and a call to action for other nations. World leaders from 40 nations were invited to participate.
The president called the summit a first step toward a united effort among larger economies, which are also the larger carbon polluters.
“We have to move. We have to move quickly” to keep global warming at a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, Biden said. Vice President Harris spoke first, and she invoked wildfires in her home state of California as one example of the real impact of climate change.
“As a global community, it is imperative that we act quickly and together,” she said.
An audio problem on the White House live stream caused an echo effect as Harris spoke. The problem continued as Biden began but was soon fixed.
As summit begins, Harris says ‘it is imperative we act’
Vice President Harris kicked off the climate summit by saying “it is imperative we act.”
“This will require innovation, innovation and collaboration around the world,” Harris said as she welcomed several dozen world leaders on a live stream that initially had audio issues.
“Together, of course, we come from very different places, but we fully share this common concern and this common threat,” Harris said of the climate-change challenge before turning the program over to Biden.
Analysis: Biden’s climate agenda goes big but is fuzzy on details
It’s bold on the promises but fuzzy on the details. Biden will commit the United States to cutting its greenhouse gas emissions as much as 52 percent by the end of the decade.
The announcement nearly doubles a target set by President Barack Obama in 2015 as part of the Paris climate accord, by vowing the nation will reduce its emissions between 50 and 52 percent by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.
But Biden has yet to spell out exactly how his administration plans on meeting the new target — and succeeding will be challenging without help from Congress and private industry.
Biden set to kick off two-day Leaders Summit on Climate with remarks on raising ambitions
Biden is set to kick off his two-day, virtual Leaders Summit on Climate at 8 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday with remarks during a session titled, “Raising Our Climate Ambition.”
The conference agenda describes the first session as “an opportunity for leaders to highlight the climate-related challenges their countries face and the efforts they are undertaking, and to announce new steps to strengthen climate ambition.”
According to guidance provided by the White House, Biden will also return to the gathering later Thursday morning to participate in a session advertised on the agenda as “Investing in Climate Solutions.”
Biden’s itinerary for Thursday also includes a national security briefing, lunch with Harris and a briefing from his coronavirus advisers.
Underscoring the emphasis the White House is seeking to put on climate issues, White House press secretary Jen Psaki will be joined at her daily briefing by John F. Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, and Gina McCarthy, the national climate adviser.
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