President Joe Biden said Friday at COP27 that the United States will meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and asked other nations to “improve” their ambitions in the face of climate change that threatens “the life of the planet.”
“We are working hard to do our part to avoid a climate hell,” Biden told representatives of nearly 200 countries gathered in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
The United States is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind only China, and also the world’s largest producer of oil and gas, whose combustion generates CO2 and methane, the two main gases causing warming.
Washington has pledged to cut its emissions by 50% to 52% by 2030 from 2005 levels. A goal that “will fulfill,” said Biden, who took the opportunity to launch a widespread wake-up call.
“Every country needs to do more,” Trump said.
Biden spent just three hours in Sharm el-Sheikh, from where he left for Cambodia to attend a Southeast Asian summit.
As soon as he landed in Egypt, he held a meeting with his counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, in which, according to the White House. raised the issue of human rights as imprisoned dissident Alaa Abdel Fatah goes on a prolonged hunger strike.
Biden is making his tour reinforced by Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States.
Read: COP27: Climate change crisis can be an opportunity
In the absence of definitive results, Congress is heading for a narrow Republican majority that will be insufficient to dismantle the historic energy transition law approved in August and which provides for climate measures for 370,000 million dollars.
Biden said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which cut off the flow of Russian hydrocarbons to Western countries, reinforces the “urgency” of a transition that leaves behind dependence on fossil fuels.
And he warned that the climate crisis puts “the very life of the planet” at risk.
Loss and damage
Biden made no reference to a burning issue at COP27: the demand by developing countries that the most industrialized nations, historically responsible for the bulk of emissions, feed a fund to compensate them for the losses and damages of climate change.
The debate on the creation of such a fund is on the agenda of COP27, although officially there is a period of two years to reach an agreement.
Mohamed Adow, founder of the Power Shift Africa think tank, called the United States a “historic polluter” and said Washington has so far been an obstacle to the creation of such a fund.
Update promises
The international community as a whole has not honored its promise to reduce CO2 emissions, an essential condition, according to climatologists, to avoid an average temperature increase of more than 1.5ºC compared to the pre-industrial era.
And only about thirty countries updated their targets for further cutting their emissions before the Sharm meeting.
Read: COP 27, new call in the face of the climate crisis: what are the challenges and how does Mexico arrive?
In a new warning about the urgency of the situation, a report by the Global Carbon Project released indicated that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels will increase by 1% compared to 2021 and break records this year.
Sensitive issues
In Sharm el-Sheikh, another delicate discussion has opened: how to update the figure of 100,000 million dollars a year that rich countries had pledged to give to the poor, to mitigate their gas emissions and adapt to the new reality.
That figure was promised in 2009 for 2020, but there is currently about $17 billion to reach that amount.
Diplomatic sources point out that the United States is not contributing to the height of its economic capacity.
In that sense, Biden announced that his country will contribute 11,400 million a year, compared to the 7,600 million contributed in 2020 according to the specialized platform Carbon Brief.
What we do at Animal Político requires professional journalists, teamwork, dialogue with readers and something very important: independence. You can help us keep going. Be part of the team.
Subscribe to Animal Político, receive benefits and support free journalism#YoSoyAnimal
