Russian invasion of Ukraine has left US and other countries looking for more fossil fuel output, threatening climate goals.
United States President Joe Biden has urged world leaders to ramp up efforts to combat climate change because the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to underline the deep reliance on fossil fuels by the world’s top emitters.
The meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), the third such forum since Biden took office and the biggest leader-level climate gathering before the United Nation’s COP27 climate conference in November, comes at a clumsy time for the US president, who has urged increased oil production each domestically and abroad, amid soaring prices.
Still, Biden told those assembled virtually on Friday that “climate security and energy security go hand in hand”.
“We cannot afford to let the critical goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius slip out of our reach and the science tells us that the window for motion is rapidly narrowing,” Biden said.
“So I urge those countries which have not yet done so to set a 2030 emissions goal to align with the Paris [accord] temperature goal … And to strengthen their targets for COP27,” he added, referring to the goal specified by the 2015 Paris climate accord of keeping global temperatures below a 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) increase compared with pre-industrial levels.
“At the identical time, we’d like latest initiatives to speed up our progress toward our goals and bolster our resilience,” he said.
Prior to Biden’s speech, the White House laid out a series of latest initiatives and measures, saying Washington expected world leaders to “raise ambitions” in combating rising global temperatures at Friday’s forum and pledge to hitch “latest efforts and initiatives aimed toward tackling the climate crisis while advancing energy-security and food-security”.
A senior Biden administration said 23 countries were represented by video conference on the forum, including a lot of the world’s major economies. Members of the MEF account for roughly 80 percent of worldwide economic output in addition to 80 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
Underscoring the present diplomatic complexities of worldwide cooperation, Russia didn’t attend Friday’s summit. China, the world’s largest emitter, was set to only be represented by Beijing’s climate envoy, and never President Xi Jinping. India, one other major emitter, was also not included on the official list of attendees.
Talking to those gathered, Biden outlined a US-European Union initiative to construct on a September 2021 pledge to chop emissions of methane, a planet-warming gas, not less than 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. Greater than 100 countries signed onto the plan on the United Nation’s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow last 12 months.
The “global methane energy pathway” announced by the US and EU on Friday would require adopting countries to commit to the very best reduction of methane emissions possible by tapping “latest technical and financial resources and/or by enhancing domestic project and policy motion”.
Washington also planned to spend $21.5bn on large-scale “demonstration projects” – progressive projects to scale back emissions that may be replicated the world over – and urge other countries to chip in to succeed in a $90bn goal, Biden said.
After last 12 months signing an executive order that mandated that half of all light-duty vehicles sold within the US be zero-emission by 2030, Biden urged the forum to “join us in the same goal”.
The US president also announced a “challenge” for the upcoming COP27 – created by the US, Norway and Denmark – to encourage governments, ports and cargo owners to give you concrete steps towards full decarbonisation no later than 2050.
