US President Joe Biden addressed the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt on Thursday, saying the global climate crisis posed an existential threat to the planet and promising that the US was doing its part to combat it.
“The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security, and the very life of the planet,” Biden said, before outlining steps the United States, the world’s second-biggest greenhouse gas emitter, was taking.
“I can stand here as President of the United States of America and say with confidence, the United States of America will meet our emissions targets by 2030,” he said His speech was intended to remind government representatives gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh to keep alive a goal of keeping the global average temperature rise within 1.5° Celsius to avert the worst impacts of planetary warming. It came even as a slew of crises — from a land war in Europe to rampant inflation — distracted international focus.
“Against this backdrop, it’s more urgent than ever that we double down on our climate commitments. Russia’s war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels,” he said.
Prior to his arrival, Biden’s administration sought to set the stage by unveiling a domestic plan to crack down hard on the US oil and gas industry’s emissions of methane, one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, in a move that defied months of lobbying by drillers. Protesters stood up and held a sign during Biden’s speech, a Reuters witness in the room where Biden was speaking said.
His speech was not interrupted and security guards approached the group of protesters to remove their sign.
Compensation talks
Talks at the Cop27 summit about how to compensate developing countries for the damage caused by climate change are not yet ready to decide on a new funding mechanism, an EU negotiator said on Friday. The topic, known as “loss and damage”, made it to the agenda for the conference in Egypt in what was seen as a breakthrough for developing nations who want richer states to pay for decades of emissions that have caused global temperatures to rise.
EU negotiator Jacob Werksman said that he hoped for substantive outcomes from the Cop27 summit that went beyond process, but also said the talks were not ready to agree on a single funding solution. “We don’t think that this process is ready to agree in principle that a new fund or facility is the right or the only way forward,” he told a news conference. “But we are not excluding that and couldn’t exclude that as a significant part of the conversation.”
