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SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt – President Joe Biden used his speech at the United Nations’ climate summit as a victory lap for getting the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law and pledged to hike funding for poorer countries bearing the brunt of the climate crisis.
The US is meeting the urgency of the moment by spending $369 billion in tax credits for renewable energy, electric-vehicle infrastructure, and a cleaner manufacturing sector under the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden said.
But the president failed to mention that the US isn’t anywhere close to fulfilling a promise to quadruple climate financing for developing nations to $11 billion annually by 2024 — a defining issue at the UN climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, a resort city along the Red Sea in Egypt.
“The United States is acting. Everyone has to act. That’s the duty and responsibility of global leadership,” Biden said.
But some observers criticized the gap between the rhetoric coming from the US and the action.
“The US is the world’s richest country and the largest contributor to the cumulative heat-trapping emissions that are driving climate change,” Rachel Cleetus, the policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists’ climate and energy program, said. “Yet the US has repeatedly and shamefully failed to meet its commitments to provide robust public climate finance for low- and middle-income countries to transition to clean energy and adapt to climate change.”
A Democrat-controlled Congress this year authorized just $1 billion for helping other countries, according to an analysis by the World Resources Institute.
