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WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden has invited 40 world leaders to a live-streamed Climate Leaders Summit that he will host on April 22-23.
Guests include Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“The Leaders Summit … will underscore the urgency – and the economic benefits – of stronger climate action,” the White House said in a statement.
“In recent years, scientists have stressed the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees C to avoid the worst impacts of climate change,” the White House said. “A key goal … will be to catalyze efforts to keep that 1.5 degree target within reach.”
“The Summit will also highlight examples of how greater climate ambition will create high-paying jobs, promote innovative technologies and help vulnerable countries adapt to climate impacts.”
Ahead of the summit, the United States will announce “an ambitious 2030 emissions target as its new nationally determined contribution under the Paris Agreement,” the statement read.
Prime Minister Lee accepted Biden’s invitation to participate in the summit, Singapore’s Foreign Ministry said in a press release on Saturday.
“Climate change is an existential threat to humanity and requires a concerted and sustained global response,” he said, adding: “As a small island state, Singapore is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”
“Singapore welcomes the leadership of the United States in convening this summit, which will be an important milestone on the road to the United Nations Conference on Climate Change (COP-26) in November in Glasgow,” he said.
Climate change is an area that the United States believes it is possible to do business with with China and Russia, despite the profound differences between them on a number of other issues.
Next month’s summit, which begins on Earth Day, will be the first public test of whether such participation is possible.
The Biden administration is also facing pressure from progressive groups to announce a goal of halving US carbon emissions by 2030. Anything other than that would undermine the goal of preventing temperatures from rising more than 1.5 ° C.
Such a goal would trigger the fundamental shift away from fossil fuels in power generation and transportation, and the administration hopes that by creating jobs in the renewable energy sector, it will offset the loss of jobs in the fossil fuel sector, which still It represents most of the United States. energy mix; only 11 percent of energy in the United States comes from renewable sources.
The aggressive commitment is seen as a move to take global leadership and challenge other nations to go public with their enhanced commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Former President Donald Trump, a climate change skeptic (some say he flatly denies it) had pulled the United States out of its commitments, saying the Paris Agreement would kill American jobs.
Biden’s climate team is led by former Secretary of State John Kerry and Ms Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
At a March 23 ministerial meeting of more than 30 countries, Kerry sent a strong signal from US leadership on the climate crisis, saying: “Climate predictions have routinely come true, but bigger and faster than anticipated. . We continue to be surprised by the pace and intensity of the warm-up ”.
“It is more urgent than ever that we all use this decade to significantly reduce emissions.”
Groups like America Is All In, Energy Innovation and the Environmental Defense Fund have been made public or are due to be published in the coming weeks, on track to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2030, the environmental report. and E&E News reports from Energy Magazine.
While Biden is using an ambitious commitment to return to a leadership role in the fight against climate change and seize action at the international level, it is a political gamble for him at the national level.
The coal industry alone has lost tens of thousands of jobs, many in rural areas.
In theory, a coal worker can retrain, but the question remains whether a solar company will want to hire a 50-year-old coal miner, said Dr. Paul Sullivan, who teaches energy and environmental safety at the University. Johns Hopkins.
“A lot of people are pushing for a quick switch to renewables, but there will be a significant impact,” said Dr. Sullivan. “It is vital to have a just transition.”
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