What will Biden’s climate summit mean for Boris Johnson and Cop26?

As the US president prepares to host a virtual summit of world leaders next week to discuss the climate emergency, Sean O’Grady considers what it could mean for the prime minister’s approach to November’s Cop26 conference in Glasgow

Boris Johnson in February speaking about the forthcoming UN Climate Summit (WPA/Getty)

After four years of inaction, and worse, during the Trump administration in which the climate emergency was regarded as little more than a “Chinese hoax”, the symbolism, and indeed the substance, could hardly be greater.

Next Thursday (22 April) is Earth Day and the United States will resume its role of global leadership on the environment with Joe Biden hosting a virtual summit of world leaders. Everyone, from Ali Bongo Ondimba president of Gabon to President Xi Jinping of China, will be there, totalling about 40 heads of state and government. Members of the Major Economic Forum on Energy and Climate, representing nations responsible for 80 per cent of harmful global emissions will be represented, as well as climate change “front line” states such as Bangladesh, faced with huge pressures on land and populations as a result of rising sea levels.

As a show of force and an event that will capture international attention it will be the largest such gathering since the Paris climate conference of 2015. As a matter of substance, President Biden hopes to match that with a new ambitious goal for the US to reduce its own emissions and set a more exacting example for other advanced nations in its Nationally Determined Contribution, probably focusing on tighter emissions control by 2030. Since the Paris Accord was signed by President Obama, and subsequently rescinded by President Trump, America has slipped in its progress and will have to redouble its efforts to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and to help limit the rise in world temperature to 1.5C compared with pre-industrial levels. Given that America remains one of the planet’s great forces for good, as well as one of its great polluters, a new US emissions is target is an important change.

No doubt the prime minister, Boris Johnson, will make his own characteristic contribution but he may wonder if the Biden summit is going to steal the thunder of the United Nations Climate Change Cop26 Conference in Glasgow in November. It would be difficult for the US to issue a new emissions target by November, and indeed, the US State Department may be trying to get other world leaders to commit to more stringent targets on Earth Day, which will leave even less for the British to announce when the world convenes again, physically or virtually, in a few months.

Other Biden-inspired themes also pre-empt what might be discussed in the autumn – such as the creation of “green” jobs, new technologies and assistance to countries that are drowning as the glaciers and ice caps melt and sea levels rise. With its initiative on a global minimum rate of income tax, and a renewed effort to fight Covid-19, including rejoining the World Health Organisation, the Biden White House is differentiating itself strongly from its predecessor administration. Whether that means the Democrats are now the ones making America great again will be tested in the coming years.