{"id":20785,"date":"2023-11-29T01:55:06","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T07:55:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=20785"},"modified":"2023-11-29T01:55:11","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T07:55:11","slug":"bidens-first-ever-un-climate-summit-snub-carries-symbolic-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=20785","title":{"rendered":"Biden\u2019s first-ever UN climate summit snub carries symbolic weight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

President Biden\u2002<\/u><\/a>is reportedly skipping a global climate change summit for the first time in his presidency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not attending the conference, which is set to begin later this week, would mark a significant snub by a president who has vowed to fight global warming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet some experts say his absence is unlikely to actually impact the conference\u2019s outcomes, with both his presence and absence playing more of a symbolic role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Multiple news outlets have reported that Biden is not planning to attend, and his public schedule does not list him attending a forum for heads of state slated for this weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about Biden\u2019s plans, White House spokespeople said they \u201cdon\u2019t have any travel updates to announce at this time,\u201d but said other key officials \u2014 climate envoy John Kerry,<\/u><\/a> White House adviser John Podesta and national climate adviser Ali Zaidi \u2014 will travel to the COP28 conference in Dubai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate activists criticized the president over the reported decision Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is President Biden missing another opportunity to be a leader on climate change,\u201d said Stevie O\u2019Hanlon, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter making decisions like approving the Willow Project that are putting the United States on track to produce more oil and gas than ever before it would be wise for him to prove his commitment to climate action,\u201d O\u2019Hanlon added, referencing a massive oil drilling project approved under the administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean Su, director of the Energy Justice Program at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly expressed disappointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis absence really shows a lack of commitment to climate right now when it\u2019s the most important time to get to a climate talk,\u201d Su said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, this conference is being run by an oil baron,\u201d she noted. Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., is set to lead this year\u2019s event. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important that Biden shows up and challenges the fossil fuel interests that are blatantly running the conference,\u201d Su said. \u201cIt\u2019s extremely worrying that President Biden is not coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But others argue that Biden\u2019s absence is unlikely to impact the outcomes of the conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Morgan Bazilian,<\/u><\/a> who has previously worked as a European Union negotiator during climate talks, told The Hill that Biden\u2019s absence \u201cdoes impact the tone or the optics of the event to a certain extent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, he said, \u201cI have never thought that the presence of heads of state were necessary to making these agreements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe civil servants that go, the delegations, already have what they\u2019re going to attempt to do. Having a lot of paparazzi in the form of heads of state at the event rarely does more than raise the profile, which tends to be unnecessary,\u201d added Bazilian, who is now a professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. is currently the second-largest global emitter of greenhouse gases and over the years has released more planet-warming gases than any other nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden has vowed to make combating climate change a key priority. He passed a bill including major subsidies for renewable energy last year and rejoined the Paris Agreement after former President Trump withdrew the U.S. from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan Hultman, director of the University of Maryland\u2019s Center for Global Sustainability, said the country\u2019s recent actions will give it credence at this year\u2019s conference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy any metric, we\u2019re doing extraordinarily well on that over the past couple of years, and I think because of that, we\u2019ll show up really well at the COP,\u201d said Hultman, who previously worked on international climate issues for the Biden administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hultman also said that the specific agenda items for this year\u2019s conference can \u201cabsolutely\u201d be accomplished without the presence of heads of state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dan Lashof, director of the World Resources Institute\u2019s U.S. branch, similarly said it is \u201calways valuable\u201d when a president attends a climate conference because it \u201cputs a brighter spotlight on the issue,\u201d but said Biden\u2019s anticipated absence doesn\u2019t cast doubt on his commitment, given his administration\u2019s actual record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told reporters prior to the news of Biden\u2019s plans to skip the event that the impact of him not going would be lessened by Kerry\u2019s prominence on this issue and the global stage in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think the presence of John Kerry, and the vigor that he brings to this area and the commitment he brings, I think really ameliorates any particular concerns about whether or not the Biden administration is all in,\u201d Keohane said during a press briefing last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biden\u2019s expected absence from the conference comes as he faces criticism from much of his political base regarding his handling of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Young and progressive voters have also pushed back on his approval of several fossil fuel projects and see climate as a higher priority than many of their older and more moderate counterparts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, when asked if the Israel-Hamas conflict has impacted other priorities like COP28, said Biden \u201chas been very much focused on the conflict between Israel and Hamas over the last month or so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a robust representation, obviously, and we expect to have a productive \u2014 it will be productive,\u201d press secretary Karine Jeanne-Pierre added, referencing Kerry, Podesta and Zaidi specifically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Su said, however, that Biden not attending \u201cjust adds further disappointment, especially to young voters.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a follow-up email, she added that Biden and the U.S. are \u201cvery happy to immediately mobilize massive resources for war\u201d but not to fight climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is clear that he is not treating the climate crisis like the existential emergency it is and instead is failing to commit any real resources to fight an effort that requires wartime resource mobilization,\u201d Su said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Bazilian said the specific decision not to attend COP28 is unlikely to register compared to issues such as the Middle East and the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t see the general voting public in the United States has the international climate talks on its priority list of topics,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t see how climate change at an international event taking place halfway across the world makes a dent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Biden\u2002is reportedly skipping a global climate change summit for the first time in his presidency. Not attending the conference, which is set to begin later this week, would mark a significant snub by a president who has vowed to fight global warming. Yet some experts say his absence is unlikely to actually impact the conference\u2019s outcomes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20786,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[24594,1169,4346,22487,21944,1712],"class_list":["post-20785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-absent","tag-biden","tag-breach","tag-climate-summit","tag-promise","tag-un"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20785"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20787,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20785\/revisions\/20787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}