WASHINGTON – Days after the midterm elections, President Joe Biden on Friday reiterated American promises to stay in the fight against climate change and said the United States would reach its pollution reduction targets by 2030.
Biden spoke at the United Nations’ global climate summit, known as COP27, being held in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, through Nov.18.
At the climate summit, leaders of developing nations have been discussing the role the industrialized countries play in causing climate change and who should be paying to help the poorer countries offset the damage.
“The United States of America will meet our mission targets by 2030,” said Biden, pledging the country’s commitment and leadership to help the world fight the consequences of climate change. He said that the United States “will do our part to avert a climate hell.”
“And the sum total of the actions my administration is taking puts the United States on track to achieve our Paris Agreement goal of reducing emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030,” the president said.
Biden’s engagement with climate change has marked a sharp reversal from the policies of his predecessor, President Donald Trump, who doubted the role carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels play in raising the planet’s temperatures. He also withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement, a step Biden canceled on his first day in office.
In his speech in Egypt, Biden focused on U.S. accomplishments and goals such as the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, bipartisan legislation passed by Congress and signed into law by the president last summer, calling it the “biggest, most important climate bill in the history of our country.”
Biden also renewed a promise to provide $11.4 billion to the international climate aid every year by 2024, which would likely meet challenges if Republicans gain control of the House after Tuesday’s midterms elections, and has not been fully funded.
The Congress has only appropriated $1 billion for climate change assistance for 2022. The initiative would help developing countries transition to clean energy sources and adjust to the realities of climate change.
“Here in Egypt,” Biden said, “the Great Pyramids and the ancient artifacts stand as testament to millennia of human ingenuity. We see our mission to avert climate catastrophe and seize a new clean energy economy not only as an imperative for our present and future, but through the eyes of history.”
Biden attended the climate summit alongside other administration officials, including climate envoy John Kerry, as well as Democratic lawmakers led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California.
Pelosi also promoted the Inflation Reduction Act in front of the COP27 delegates on Friday.
“We know there is much more that needs to be done, but what we have accomplished with the Inflation Reduction Act was something that has never been done before in our country or in any other country,” Pelosi said.
The legislation was aimed at targeting various sectors of the economy, including the goals to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. The measure included a $370 billion package of incentives for investments in energy security and climate change.
Pelosi said that the U.S. government has received positive feedback on the Inflation Reduction Act from leaders around the world.
“And there was a recognition that the Inflation Reduction Act has made a significant difference and will make a significant difference,” she said.
Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat who is on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said on Thursday in a press conference that the Democrats were not conceding anything yet. He spoke from the COP27 alongside Democratic Sens. Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
“Politics in Washington is always challenging when it comes to any appropriation bill and I don’t think that’s going to change very much with the next Congress,” Cardin said.
Whitehouse said there is a “strong bipartisan interest” in supporting the transitioning economies and supporting the International funds, but opposition would likely come from the Republicans.
“Republican leadership, if you use the word ‘climate,’ they seem to be a guest. And we really need to work together to see whether they act responsibly,” Whitehouse said. “The Republican opposition is driven by the fossil fuel industry.”
Markey stressed that the United States needs to continue to fight against climate change regardless of the consequences of the elections, and should play its part in combatting the devastating consequences of climate change around the world.
“We hear Pakistan, we hear Bangladesh…We hear all these countries, and they are right. We have to do much more,” Markey said. “This is an absolutely imminent threat to countries around the world, the United States has to be the leader.”