While many international leaders met at the COP28 summit in Dubai, the 28th annual UN climate change conference, President Joe Biden was notably absent. The White House cited other ongoing crises as the reason, as he is attempting to help hostages from the Hamas-Israel conflict and continue aid to Ukraine for its war against Russia. Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris attended the summit and delivered announcements regarding a new United States pledge towards the Green Climate Fund.
Biden’s presence at the summit could have been an opportunity to demonstrate how his administration prioritizes climate change. Biden has both led initiatives to fight climate change and taken actions that are a step back in terms of environmentalism. He signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which provided more than $370 billion worth of subsidies into climate-positive industries. He also re-committed to the Paris Agreement. Despite this, he has also supported many new oil projects, such as the new Willow oil project, a huge drilling project in Alaska, and exported record amounts of gas to Europe to alleviate the Russia-Ukraine energy crisis from the Russia-Ukraine war.
Domestically, many Republicans disapprove of Biden’s pushes for more funding towards combating climate change, believing that he is restricting American energy production with his policies, while many environmentalists do not take his efforts seriously as they believe he is not pushing enough for green initiatives. Biden’s absence from the summit has furthered many environmentalist’s convictions that his environmental track record is spotty. This could prove to be an issue for his reelection campaign in 2024.
Several environmentalist groups have questioned the effectiveness of the climate summit, as Greta Thunberg was notably absent. However, Biden’s absence seems to be due to other reasons, namely too many other conflicts vying for his attention. Altogether, Biden faces criticism from both sides domestically, while his administration attempts to balance climate policy with energy production.
Though Biden has made progress in combating climate change, if he does not stop pushing new oil and fossil fuel projects, it will not be sufficient. The goal of the UN to keep global temperature changes beneath 1.5 degrees celsius appears unreachable if the US, second in the world for carbon emissions, continues to try and promote both climate and fossil fuel initiatives. We already see many impacts of climate change, such as wildfires and flooding, and 1.5 degrees would be a turning point for many of the more devastating impacts of climate change. As members of the younger generation, global warming will become a very real issue for us in the coming years, and current policymakers cannot ignore the future of our nation. Green policies are incompatible with fossil fuel initiatives, and now is a crucial point for Biden to decide which America should choose.
