The president of the United States, Joe Biden, seeks to lead the fight against the climate crisis with the organization of a virtual summit, that starting this Thursday will bring together Putin , the Chinese Xi Jinping, the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador and the Canadian Justin Trudeau.
To lead, great proposals are needed and, to this end, Joe Biden will promise to cut back US greenhouse emissions at least half for 2030 , almost double the initial objective that his country assumed under the Paris Agreement.
Even so, this commitment is lower than that of the European Union (EU), which on the eve of that summit has reached an agreement to reduce its net CO2 emissions by “at least” a 55% in 2030, fren you to the target of the current 40% current.
However, the US president counts having managed to bring to the table two of the world’s largest emitters, Russia and China.
A summit without bilateral
Despite the presence of Putin and Xi, high-ranking officials of the US Administration ruled out this Wednesday in a call with journalists that no bilateral meeting is to be held on the margins of the summit.
US Special Envoy on Climate Change, John Kerry , who visited China last week, stressed this Wednesday in a talk with the newspaper The Washington Post that without the Asian giant there is no way to solve global warming, regardless of the differences it maintains with Washington in other areas.
Kerry announced that China has decided to sign the joint communiqué that leaves the meeting, do Where climate change is recognized as a global crisis.
“China has used the word crisis for the first time,” said the former Secretary of State, who hopes that in this meeting Xi make an announcement on “what you are going to do to address this immediate challenge by 2030”.
And he added that what Biden is looking for is “to raise ambition globally”, with his sights set more on 2030 than on 2050.
“ I have heard many people signing zero emissions for 2050, and I welcome you and it is fundamental, but there are still 30 years away ”, Kerry recalled, for whom it is necessary to be more ambitious in the medium term to reach that goal in three decades.
Thus, he warned that if countries do not commit to reducing their emissions of Nine years from now and the average temperature of the Earth is not kept below 1.5 degrees Celsius, it will be difficult to reach zero emissions pollutants in 2050.
Two days with morning sessions
The summit, to be opened by Joe Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris, will be divided into two days that will start at 08: 00 local time.
Apart from Putin and Xi, other heads of State and Government who will intervene Thursday will be the French President, Emmanuel Macron; the British Prime Ministers, Boris Johnson, and Italian, Mario Draghi, and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Also, there will be the presidents of Colombia, Iván Duque; from Argentina, Alberto Fernández; from Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro; from Chile, Sebastián Piñera, and from Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
Other notable presences will be those of the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan; the South African, Cyril Ramaphosa; the Indian, Narendra Modi, and the South Korean, Moon Jae-in ; as well as those of the Japanese heads of government, Yoshihide Suga, the Canadian, Justin Trudeau.
The Pope Francis , the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, and the Saudi King, Salmán bin Abdulaziz will be other speakers on the first day .
Biden Administration officials stated that the 80% of the emissions that cause the greenhouse effect come from the 20 main economies in the world, which are the ones with the largest political weight and that they will be represented at this meeting.
The second part of Thursday morning will be dedicated to the private sector, since the US Government wants that “the conversation is broader and the door to private capital opens,” indicated US officials in the call.
The private sector, fundamental for the United States
In that block will be the executive directors of Allianz, Oliver Bäte; Citigroup, Jane Fraser, and Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, among others, in addition to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and the president of the World Bank, David Malpass.
On Friday, the meeting will host the interventions of the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as the leaders of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen; from Norway, Erna Solberg, and from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktum.
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, will take part in the session “Economic opportunities of climate action”, together with the Nigerian, Muhammadu Buhari; from Poland, Andrzej Duda, and from Vietnam, Nguyen Xuan Phuc; which will also include the founder of the Breakthrough Energy organization, Bill Gates, among others.
Biden has upended US climate policy during the Donald Trump era (2017 – 2021), who withdrew the country from the Paris Agreement, and even doubted on occasion that global warming existed. Biden reversed that decision the same day he arrived at the White House, last 20 January.
With information from EFE.
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