(Glasgow) Former US President Barack Obama said he believed on Monday that the Biden administration will eventually get Congress to pass its $ 555 billion climate plan, while denouncing what he called “the dangerous reluctance “of Russia and China to reduce their own polluting emissions.
He made the comments at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.
“As far as the climate is concerned, we are really starting to run out of time,” Mr. Obama told the participants. Although progress has been made since the Paris Agreement in 2015, “we are not even close to where we should be”.
Dead ends in several files
Several conference officials admitted on Monday that the deadlock persists in several issues. It seems obvious that trust is not at the rendezvous between rich and poor countries when we compare the results of the week to what remains to be done. Developing countries used five versions of the word “disappointing” when leaders gave an update Monday on the progress made so far.
This is the first time that Mr. Obama has participated in a United Nations climate conference since the triumph of Paris in 2015, when the nations of the world agreed to reduce polluting emissions quickly enough to limit global warming to 1, 5 degree Celsius.
Optimism has since given way to worry. Donald Trump has withdrawn the United States from the Paris Agreement. Joe Biden reversed that decision as soon as he took office earlier this year, but America’s efforts to combat climate change have lagged far behind nonetheless.
Obama’s visit to Glasgow was intended to remind governments of the enthusiasm for the Paris Agreement and to urge them to take more immediate and concrete steps to implement the 2015 agreement.
The former president praised the efforts of several countries, including those of Canada, to combat the climate crisis.
“I was not very happy,” he said of Mr. Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, before adding: “We need optimism to save the world. planet. Sometimes I get discouraged. Sometimes the future seems bleak to me. I sometimes doubt that humanity can agree to act before it is too late. But we cannot afford to give up. ”
Mr. Obama recalled that climate change does not care about political allegiances, that it will flood homes and destroy the crops of supporters of all stripes.
Empty Putin and Xi chairs
And if, in 2015, relations between representatives of the Obama administration and their Chinese counterparts had made it possible to reach an agreement, Monday Mr. Obama denounced the absence in Glasgow of Chinese presidents Xi Jinping and Russian presidents Vladimir Poutin .
“I was particularly disheartened that the leaders of two of the world’s biggest polluters, China and Russia, did not even come to participate in the discussions. Their national plans seem to show a dangerous lack of rush, ”he said.
Mr. Obama addressed a session earlier Monday in the Pacific Islands, some of which are greatly threatened by rising sea levels.
“We all have a role to play. We all have work to do. We will all have to make sacrifices, he said. But we who live in rich countries, those of us who helped create the problem […] we have an additional responsibility. ”
No agreement on the three objectives
No agreement has yet been reached on the three main objectives of the conference: to reduce pollutant emissions by half by 2030 to preserve the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius; annual aid of US $ 100 billion from rich countries to poor countries; and the idea that half of that would be spent on adapting to the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
Several developing countries have expressed their pessimism. They called the progress “disappointing” and insufficient, believing that the quantity of ads exceeded their quality.
Representatives of 77 developing countries, in addition to China, have said the talks are doomed to failure until the issue of financial aid to help poor countries cope with crises is resolved. climatic changes.
Experts say the crisis is as serious as the gloomy rhetoric in Glasgow suggests. The Paris targets will become unattainable very soon, they said, due to the intensification of pollution damage.
Huge protests have been staged in Glasgow and elsewhere in Europe over the past few days to demand stronger action on global warming.
Mr. Obama recognized that young people “have the right to be frustrated”, before sharing with them an advice that his mother gave him when he was young.
“Don’t sulk. Activate, get to work, and change what needs to be changed, he said. Vote like your life depends on it – because it depends on it. ”