How Dare He! Biden Bails On Major International Climate Summit In Dubai
Despite calling climate change the "ultimate threat to humanity" just weeks ago, President Joe Biden is skipping out on this week's COP28 climate summit in Dubai set for later this week, leaving 'special envoy on climate change' John Kerry as the top US official at the event, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the situation.
Biden joins Chinese President Xi Jinping in bailing on the event - leaving Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the UK’s Rishi Sunak and France’s President Emmanuel Macron to play footsie under the table with King Charles III, Pope Francis, and the leaders of nearly 200 other countries.
While the White House has not officially announced Biden's lack of attendance, the US delegation preparing for the annual talks has been told not to expect him at this year's event.
The global leaders’ summit that opens COP takes place on Friday and Saturday this week. Biden’s list of official engagements has him in the US until Thursday, when he’s expected to meet the the Angolan president in Washington. Presidential travel schedules can be changed at the last minute. -Bloomberg
"Although we don’t have any travel updates to share for the President at this time, the Administration looks forward to a robust and productive COP28," said White House spox Angelo Fernandez Hernandez in a statement.
Biden notably attended the last two summits, which were held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt last year and Glasgow, Scotland the year before.
Senior White House aides suggested that the war between Israel and Hamas has consumed Biden's energy.
"They’ve got the war in the Middle East and a war in Ukraine, a bunch of things going on," said Kerry in comments last week.
Vice President Kamala Harris is also skipping out on the event, which is expected to have some 70,000 people in attendance. The US is expected to come under fire for not following through on pledges to help developing nations shift to clean energy, the NY Times reports.
In 2015, countries agreed to cut emissions from coal, oil and gas in an attempt to keep so-called manmade global warming "well below 2 degrees Celsius," and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. Doing so, according to the Times (of course), would require cutting emissions some 43% below 2019 levels by 2030 to avoid what 'top climate scientists' claim will be a climate catastrophe - perhaps on par with the melted ice caps and the wiping out of humanity.
Why did you delete this, Greta? Aren't we all dead?
