Congress has proposed $1 billion to help poor countries cope with climate change, a figure that falls significantly short of President Biden's promise that the U.S. will spend $11.4 billion annually to ensure developing nations can transition to clean energy and adapt to a warming planet.
Lawmakers are expected to vote on the spending package this week.
Republicans quashed what they called "radical environmental and climate policies" in the spending bill, even though Democrats wanted $3.4 billion for various global climate programs. The Republicans are expected to take control of the House in January, which will make it harder to get additional climate funds.
At the UN climate talks in Egypt, Mr. Biden promised to deliver financial help to developing nations that are suffering from the impacts of a climate crisis for which they are ill-prepared and did little to cause.
Mr. Biden said that the climate crisis was hitting hardest those countries with the least resources.
The US has historically pumped the most carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The president's requests for climate aid have been reduced for the second year in a row. The inability of the Biden administration to meet its own goals undermines the United States' credibility abroad and calls into question the president's own commitment to reestablish the United States as a trustworthy, committed, global leader on climate.
The Green Climate Fund, a United Nations-led program, was not included in the spending bill.
The Senate failed to provide a penny to meet our commitments to the Green Climate Fund despite Congress bankrolling a defense bill that was $45 billion bigger than the president requested. The shortfall was caused by Republicans not engaging on climate change in a meaningful way.
The spokesman for McConnell did not respond to the request.
The meeting of Mr. Biden's goal was a top priority according to Saloni. She said that members of the administration worked to secure funding in FY23 that will allow them to achieve this goal. We will work with Congress to achieve this goal in FY 24.
Helping other nations adapt to and mitigate damages caused by a warming planet has been a difficult sell in Congress. The Green Climate Fund only received $1 billion of the $3 billion promised by the president. The fund was called a scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States by the president.
The Climate Investment Funds, which are housed at the World Bank and are aimed at helping countries develop clean energy, are included in the spending bill. Congress allocated.09 percent more money in the year 2020.
The stakes have been raised. At the United Nations climate summit in Egypt, the United States agreed to create a new fund to help poor countries deal with the effects of climate change. The US and other industrialized countries did not commit to a specific amount of funding.
John Kerry, Mr. Biden's special climate envoy, said in an interview that the US has a history of bipartisan support for humanitarian efforts.
Christina DeConcini is the director of government affairs at the World Resource Institute. She said it was important to educate lawmakers about international climate issues.
The senior strategic director for international climate issues at the Natural Resources Defense Council said that Mr. Biden could still meet his goal, but that it would be a "steep climb."
Activists abroad said they were increasingly frustrated with what they saw as a bipartisan American disinterest in helping poor nations deal with crises they didn't cause.
According to the founder and director of Power Shift Africa, the U.S. is the world's largest carbon polluter. He said the U.S. funding levels were disappointing and showed a disregard for the UN climate body.
The U.S. has failed to deliver on many of its promises in regards to climate finance.
Bearak was in New York.
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