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 the U.S. and other wealthy countries played 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 magnitude of the moment is crashing headfirst into complicated global and domestic politics. Biden administration officials have scolded China for failing to commit more to curbing carbon emissions, as China’s efforts could be crucial in any success against climate change. But the president is still trying to nail down his own climate investments with Congress.
The summit is often billed as essential to putting into action the landmark 2015 Paris Climate Accord, which Biden rejoined after becoming president this year. The Trump administration largely withdrew from hands-on diplomacy. Part of Biden’s efforts at the climate summit and the gathering of the Group of 20 nations in Rome this weekend was to reestablish the U.S. as a partner.
But Biden and his administration face obstacles in prodding the U.S. and other nations to act fast enough on climate, abroad and at home. In the runup to the climate summit, the administration has tried hard to temper expectations that two weeks of talks involving more than 100 world leaders will produce major breakthroughs.
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 U.S. is still struggling to get some of the world's biggest climate polluters — China, Russia and India — to make stronger pledges to burn far less coal, gas and oil and to move to cleaner energy.
Major polluters including China and Russia have made clear they had no immediate intention of following the U.S. and its European and Asian allies to zero out all fossil fuel pollution by 2050. Scientists say massive, fast cuts in fossil fuel pollution are essential to having any hope of keeping global warming at or below the limits set in the Paris accord.
The G-20 meeting was supposed to create some momentum for more climate progress in Glasgow. The leaders at the Italy summit dagree on a series of measures, including formalizing a pledge to cut off international subsidies for dirty-burning, coal-fired power plants.
Biden also announced at the G-20 a separate U.S.-European Union steel agreement as a chance to curb imports of "dirty" Chinese steel forged by coal power. It's another step toward potentially using Western markets as leverage to persuade China, the world's top climate polluter, to ease up in its enthusiasm for coal power.
But the world currently is on track for a level of warming that would melt much of the planet’s ice, raise global sea levels and greatly increase the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather, experts say.
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