Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt – Speaking from the U.N. Climate Conference in Egypt, President Biden announced new climate initiatives to strengthen U.S. leadership, and commitments to global action.
Responding from Sharm El-Sheikh to the announcements, Tefere Gebre, Chief Program Officer, Greenpeace USA said:
“If President Biden is serious about the U.S. doing its part to “avert climate hell”, he would deliver a plan to end the era of fossil fuels. The Biden Administration has failed to deliver on their commitment to phase out oil and gas lease sales on public lands and water and instead continues to sacrifice the health and safety of frontline communities. The commitments made today are a band-aid on damage that threatens our collective future.
“Achieving any sort of climate justice requires the United States and the world’s biggest polluters to kickstart the phase-out of fossil fuels and invest in the just transition of fossil fuel workers and communities. We can’t continue doing subtraction by addition. The climate crisis is a shared global reality and yet the U.S – one of the world’s largest polluters, producers and exporters of fossil fuels – has failed to complete existing funding investments for vulnerable countries.
The flow of funds from rich economies remains critical in building trust in climate negotiations and in saving millions of lives from the impacts of extreme weather events. While every dollar counts, the U.S. commitment of USD 150 million announced today is still a far cry from the 17 billion that are missing from the 100 billion pledged to poorer countries.
“With Loss and Damage top on the agenda, true leadership from the U.S. will require pushing for a dedicated finance facility to be agreed in Sharm el-Sheikh. This should help channel billions of new and additional funds for developing countries experiencing climate-induced loss and damage, on top of the extra climate finance that needs to be committed by developed countries for mitigation and adaptation. These funds are vital to bring comfort to millions in Africa whose lives and livelihoods have been stolen by a crisis caused by burning fossil fuels.
“Allowing more drilling and extraction of oil and gas is simply incompatible with avoiding climate catastrophe. If the U.S. government is serious about delivering climate action, President Biden must use his executive authority to declare a Climate Emergency to phase out fossil fuel production and exports.”
