Last week on Friday, President Joe Biden invited Vladimir Putin of Russia and Xi Jinping of China alongside other 40 global heads of states to the first global leaders’ climate summit which will be held in April. The president told reporters he hasn’t directly invited Putin or Xi but said the leaders “know they’re invited” to the summit, an event the US is hosting to advance global efforts to reduce climate-changing fossil fuel emissions. Biden reported he spoke with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday and European Union member states on Thursday. The White House prioritized communicating with close US alliances before reaching out to China and Russia. The White House also circulated a list of 40 world leaders who had been invited to the summit, notably Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.
It’s uncertain if Russia and China will accept invites to the summit or partner with the United States to minimize pollution. Despite growing tensions between the United States and these countries, the White House has stated that it needs to work with Russia and China on environmental issues. The Biden administration has consistently identified Beijing and Moscow as the top two national security threats to the United States.
The administration intends to announce a new carbon-emissions goal at the conference, held internationally on April 22 and 23. During his campaign and by an executive order issued in January, Biden promised to host the climate summit. The summit takes place ahead of November’s UN global climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland. The US is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China, and Russia is the fourth on the list.
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The former President, Donald Trump, suspended federal attempts to fulfill the Obama administration’s pledge to reduce US pollution by up to 28 percent of global emissions by 2025. The Biden administration is expected to set a more ambitious deadline for the country to achieve it by 2030. The summit comes as Biden pledges to transition the US economy toward clean energy and reduce emissions from coal, natural gas, and oil. Biden brought the US back into the Paris climate accord in January, after Trump’s promise in 2017 of pulling the country out, which didn’t come to pass. Biden has said that the US will recommend its emissions reduction goals under the accord and lead the effort to help other nations update their own goals. Joe Biden also vowed to put the US on a path to zero-carbon electricity generation by 2035 and net-zero emissions by 2050.
