Barack Obama expressed confidence at U.N. climate talks Monday that the Biden administration will ultimately get its $555 billion climate package through Congress, and faulted U.S. rivals China and Russia for what he called a “dangerous lack of urgency” in cutting their own climate-wrecking emissions.
As nations complained of lagging trust and progress in the climate talks, Obama, one of the leaders who paved the way for the historic 2015 Paris climate deal, threw in a touch of his trademark hope but admitted that “images of dystopia” were creeping into his dreams.
The U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, is the former American president's first since he helped deliver the triumph of the 2015 Paris climate accord, when nations committed to cutting fossil fuel and agricultural emissions fast enough to keep the Earth's warming below catastrophic levels of 1.5 degrees Celsius .
Ugandan climate activist Vanessa Nakate wrote Monday on Twitter that she was 13 when Obama was part of rich nations who promised $100 billion a year to poor countries to help them fight global warming, but said those nations broke the promise. Nakate told The Associated Press that she wasn't attacking the former president “but that is me speaking the truth.”
“It was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world's largest emitters, China and Russia, decline to even attend the proceedings, and their national plans reflect what appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency,” Obama said. No deals have been made yet on three main goals of the U.N. conference. Those are pledges to cut emissions in half by 2030 to keep the Paris climate deal's 1.5 degree Celsius temperature limit goal alive; the need for $100 billion annually in financial help from rich countries to poor ones; and the idea that half of that money goes to adapting to global warming's worst effects.
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Obama hits Russia, China for 'lack of urgency' on climateBarack Obama expressed confidence at UN climate talks Monday that the Biden administration will ultimately get its US$555 billion climate package through Congress, and faulted U.S. rivals China and Russia for what he called a 'dangerous lack of urgency' in cutting their own climate-wrecking emissions.
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Obama hits Russia, China for 'lack of urgency' on climateBarack Obama expressed confidence at UN climate talks Monday that the Biden administration will ultimately get its US$555 billion climate package through Congress, and faulted U.S. rivals China and Russia for what he called a 'dangerous lack of urgency' in cutting their own climate-wrecking emissions.
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