Biden Wants World Leaders to Make Climate Change Commitments – The New York Times

Source: Biden Wants World Leaders to Make Climate Change Commitments – The New York Times

By Lisa FriedmanPublished April 13, 2021Updated April 14, 2021, 10:40 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is nearing agreements with Japan, South Korea and Canada to bolster carbon emission reduction targets in all four countries ahead of a closely watched summit of global leaders on Earth Day, April 22.

But in the latest sign of how difficult it will be for President Biden to make climate change a core part of his foreign policy, similar deals with China, India and Brazil, economic powerhouses that together produce more than a third of global emissions, remain elusive.

John Kerry, Mr. Biden’s global climate envoy, is preparing to make a last-minute trip to China and South Korea ahead of the summit, which Mr. Biden will be hosting. Mr. Kerry arrives on Wednesday, with multiple high-level meetings in Shanghai expected on Thursday. The cooperation of the world’s largest emitter of climate-changing pollution is vital to slowing down global warming, but Beijing is also Washington’s biggest rival on the world stage.

With Brazil, the Biden administration’s efforts to negotiate an Amazon rainforest protection plan with Brazil’s conservative president, Jair Bolsonaro, have bitterly divided environmental advocates, given the Bolsonaro administration’s dismal environmental record.

And in India, where Mr. Kerry recently wrapped up three days of negotiations that did not yield any specific promise to strengthen New Delhi’s climate ambition, the administration must weigh its need for cooperation with its concerns over human rights. Indian leaders, meantime, have been unsettled by pressure to deliver an announcement in time for Mr. Biden’s summit next week after spending the past four years working with a U.S. administration that abandoned the rest of the world’s efforts to tackle global warming.

“Maybe there’s a little bit of time lag that will go into building that trust and relationship back,” said Aarti Khosla, director of Climate Trends, a climate change nonprofit based in New Delhi.

The focal point of the Leaders’ Summit on Climate will be the Biden administration’s plan to cut American emissions by 2030, and how it can overcome fierce Republican opposition. The ambitions and practicality of that target could determine the Biden administration’s success in convincing other nations to do more than they have already pledged.

“Summitry is theater, and it can be extremely impactful if there is a big centerpiece,” said Rachel Kyte, dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a climate adviser for the United Nations Secretary General. “That centerpiece is the U.S. plan.”