What Happened on Day 2 of the COP26 Climate Change Summit

Video player loading — President Biden scolded Russia and China for not participating in the United Nations summit on climate change and drew a sharp contrast between the two countries' efforts and the American leadership.Erin Schaff/The New York Times

GLASGOW — President Biden capped two days of climate talks with fellow world leaders by hailing new international commitments to curb warming, knocking China and Russia for not participating, and expressing confidence that his domestic climate agenda will clear the House and Senate.

The president said he felt certain that Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key Democratic holdout on the $1.85 trillion climate change and social safety net bill that Democrats are debating in Congress, would ultimately vote for the bill.

"I believe that Joe will be there," Mr. Biden said. "I think we'll get this done."

Mr. Biden drew a sharp contrast between American leadership and the efforts of China and Russia, whose leaders did not travel to the United Nations summit on climate change, known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland.

"I think it's been a big mistake for China" not to show up at the conference, he said. "They've lost their ability to influence people around the world, and people here at COP."

"It just is a gigantic issue and they walked away," Mr. Biden said of the Chinese leadership. "How do you do that and claim to have any leadership mantle?"

Mr. Biden had similarly sharp words for President Vladimir Putin of Russia. "His tundra is burning," Mr. Biden said. "Literally, his tundra is burning. He has serious climate problems. And he has been mum on his willingness to do anything."

He was asked in the news conference why the United States should make commitments that China and other major producers of greenhouse gases have not.

"Because we want to be able to breathe and we want to be able to lead the world," Mr. Biden said.

He said of the agreements at the summit, "I can't think of any two days when more has been accomplished."

As Mr. Biden prepared to head home on Tuesday, there were growing signs of intraparty discord over his agenda in Washington: Mr. Manchin said that he would not vote on the social plan until he knew more about what it would cost, a move that threatened to undermine Mr. Biden's sense of optimism abroad and complicate a path to the quick vote the president wants when he gets back home.

"While I have worked hard to find a path to compromise, it is obvious compromise is not good enough for some in Congress," Mr. Manchin said on Monday, reading from prepared remarks. "It's all or nothing, and their position doesn't seem to change unless we agree to everything. Enough is enough."

Mr. Manchin was apparently referring to liberals in the House, who have put up their own roadblocks on a separate $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

He warned, "I'm open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward, but I'm equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country."

While in Glasgow, Mr. Biden was asked throughout the day about Mr. Manchin's comments, but avoided answering until his evening news conference. In his remarks and his answers to reporters, he said the world must do more to meet the climate challenge, but he stressed what he said were words of thanks he had received from other leaders for bringing the United States back to negotiations after disengagement under former President Donald J. Trump.

"We showed up," Mr. Biden said. "And by showing up, we've had a profound impact."

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

President Biden and other world leaders left the United Nations climate change summit on Tuesday with agreements to curb emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and to end deforestation by 2030.

But while the progress was notable, it still fell well short of the big prize: securing aggressive commitments to reach net-zero carbon emissions globally, to slow the rising temperatures that have led to lethal fires, floods, droughts and heat waves around the world.

It also remains to be seen whether richer, polluting countries will follow through on their promises to provide $100 billion a year to help developing countries to fight global warming — a goal that John Kerry, the U.S. special climate envoy, said on Tuesday was within reach.

Whether countries can achieve those aims will play out in the coming days, after the heads of state and government have left town, during tough negotiations among their officials who will stay behind at the summit, known as COP26.

Addressing world leaders poised to leave the conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain expressed cautious optimism about Tuesday's progress. But he warned that the world still has a "long way to go."

Mr. Biden said before heading home, "I can't think of any two days when more has been accomplished" on climate change.

On Tuesday, countries promised to curb emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that spews from oil and natural gas operations, livestock production and landfills, and, in the short term, is many times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

The White House said that 105 countries, and counting, had signed the Global Methane Pledge, a commitment to reducing methane emissions 30 percent by 2030, including half of the world's top 30 methane emitters. But some major polluters, like China, Russia and India, have not joined.

Mr. Biden called the methane agreement a "game-changing commitment," also announced that for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency intends to limit the methane released by existing oil and gas rigs across the United States.

The federal government previously had rules that aimed to prevent methane leaks from oil and gas wells built since 2015, but the Trump administration rescinded them.

Congress restored the rule this year, and Mr. Biden has said he will strengthen it. In addition, the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed a new regulation to curb methane from thousands of existing oil and gas wells in the United States.

The president has set an aggressive target of cutting United States carbon emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, but legislation to help meet that goal is stalled in Congress. That leaves the administration relying on regulations and other executive actions.

At the climate summit this week, Mr. Biden tried to persuade other countries to reduce emissions from fossil fuels that are heating the planet to dangerous levels.

In addition to the pledge on methane, leaders of more than 100 countries vowed on Tuesday to end deforestation by 2030, agreeing to a sweeping accord aimed at protecting the world's forests, which are crucial to absorbing carbon dioxide and slowing the rise in global warming. President Biden said the United States would contribute billions to the effort.

The pact — which includes countries such as Brazil, Russia and China — encompasses about 85 percent of the world's forests, officials said.

But some environmentalists were skeptical. In 2014, an accord was reached to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it entirely by 2030. Five years after the pledge, according to one estimate, the area of forest destroyed annually had grown dramatically worse.

"It allows another decade of forest destruction and isn't binding," said Carolina Pasquali, the executive director of Greenpeace Brazil. "Meanwhile, the Amazon is already on the brink and can't survive years more deforestation."

The crush of people waiting to enter the United Nations climate change summit snakes down the street. Police officers call out asking the cold, grumbling delegates not to take photos, yet virtually everyone does.

Successfully passing that checkpoint leads to a second, equally long security line.

What It's Like to Cover Global Climate Talks

What It's Like to Cover Global Climate Talks

Lisa Friedman📍Reporting from my 10th COP

This week and next, I'm in Glasgow with my colleagues for the United Nations climate summit known as COP26. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain called it "the moment when we get real about climate change."

Here's what it's like inside →

On Tuesday the United Nations climate change body issued a formal apology to the nearly 30,000 people attending the summit in Glasgow for what it called the "inconveniences" of accessing the conference.

In addition to long lines in Glasgow, technology glitches have made it difficult for people trying to monitor the talks online.

"In many ways, the first few days of the COP26 have been a learning process" particularly in complying with Covid-related restrictions, the conference organizers wrote, adding, "we are doing our utmost to continuously learn and adapt."

Erin Schaff/The New York Times

John Kerry, President Biden's special envoy on climate change, said he expected new financial commitments to fulfill a long-delayed promise to provide $100 billion a year in aid for developing countries to fight and adapt to global warming.

The latest diplomatic effort, led by Germany and Canada, aims to pull together that amount from wealthier donor countries by 2023 — three years behind the timetable set in 2015 under the Paris Agreement.

"I believe today, hopefully, that will be augmented," Mr. Kerry said on the sidelines of a meeting of a group of countries known as the High Ambition Coalition, at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

The United States has rejoined that coalition, Mr. Kerry announced Tuesday. That's important because that bloc has historically pushed for the toughest targets at international climate talks and was instrumental in clinching the final deal on the Paris Agreement. The United States had dropped from the coalition when Mr. Biden's predecessor, Donald J. Trump, withdrew from the Paris accord.

In a statement, the High Ambition Coalition rang the alarm that the world was far off track from the goal of limiting global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, by the end of this century, compared to the start of the industrial age. That's the temperature threshold beyond which the most severe climate impacts become significantly more likely.

The group said its countries "note with deep concern the gap between existing commitments and a 1.5°C pathway, stress the urgent need to accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in this decisive decade, and recognize the importance of ambitious action" by the 20 nations with the world's biggest economies, known as the Group of 20, which are also the world's 20 biggest polluters.

At the moment, even if all countries achieve their voluntarily set climate plans, the average global temperature would go far past a 1.5-degree increase, raising the prospect of much more frequent and intense heat waves, fires and floods.

The statement calls on countries to submit more ambitious climate targets in order to collectively reach the target and halt what they called "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies "as soon as possible," and signaled the need to "increase resources" for addressing loss and damage from climate impacts.

Mr. Kerry said he was optimistic that private banks would mobilize far bigger pots of money for countries trying to shift their energy systems away from fossil fuels.

"$100 billion doesn't do it," he said. "The only way we're going to get it done is if trillions of dollars are forthcoming, and they are."

Nations around the world joined together Tuesday to promise to curb emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that spews from oil and natural gas operations, livestock production and landfills and can warm the atmosphere 80 times as fast as carbon dioxide in the short term.

President Biden, calling the agreement a "game-changing commitment," also announced that for the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency intended to limit the methane coming from existing oil and gas rigs across the United States.

The federal government previously had rules that aimed to prevent methane leaks from oil and gas wells built since 2015, but the Trump administration rescinded them. President Biden intends to restore and strengthen them, administration aides said.

The announcement, at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, came as Mr. Biden faces intense pressure internationally and at home to show that the United States, the nation that has historically pumped the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is serious about mitigating climate change.

Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said cutting methane emissions was "one of the most effective things we can do" to slow global warming.

"We cannot wait for 2050 — we have to cut emissions fast," she said, calling methane "the lowest-hanging fruit."

Mr. Biden has set an aggressive target of cutting the country's emissions this decade about 50 percent below 2005 levels, but legislation to help meet that goal is stalled in Congress. That leaves the administration relying on regulations and other executive actions.

At the United Nations climate summit this week, Mr. Biden is trying to persuade other countries to reduce emissions from fossil fuels that are heating the planet to dangerous levels.

The White House said that more than 90 countries had signed the Global Methane Pledge, a commitment to reducing methane emissions 30 percent by 2030, including half of the world's top 30 methane emitters. The United States, European Union, Brazil, Indonesia, Pakistan and Nigeria are among those that have signed on. Some major polluters, like China, India and Russia, have not joined.

Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas warming the planet, after carbon dioxide, which is produced when countries burn oil, coal and natural gas for energy. Methane is the main ingredient in natural gas, and when it leaks out of wells and pipelines and into the atmosphere before being burned, it creates methane emissions. Livestock and landfills also produce methane.

The European Union announced the formation of the International Methane Emissions Observatory to ensure accountability. It will focus first on tracking the fossil fuel industry, which is responsible for one-third of anthropogenic emissions, and will then move on to other sectors like agriculture and waste.

Kieran Dodds for The New York Times

As world leaders gather, a range of activists and experts are using the COP26 setting to make their cases to a global audience. A number of prominent climate activists, including Al Gore and Greta Thunberg, will speak as part of a series of events at The New York Times's Climate Hub, an event running alongside the conference.

The event is free to watch online. Ms. Thunberg, the environmental activist, will speak at 4 p.m. local time (noon Eastern) about the media's role in covering climate change. Mr. Gore, the former vice president, will speak at 3 p.m. about the data needed for climate solutions and what can be done to make climate data more accessible and more transparent.

In a sweeping accord aimed at protecting the world's forests, which are crucial to absorbing carbon dioxide and slowing the rise in global warming, leaders of more than 100 countries gathered in Glasgow vowed on Tuesday to end deforestation by 2030.

President Biden said the United States would contribute billions to the global effort to protect the ecosystems that are vital for cleaning the air we breathe and the water we drink, and keeping the Earth's climate in balance.

The pact — which also includes countries such as Brazil, Russia and China — encompasses about 85 percent of the world's forests, officials said. It is one of the first major accords to emerge from the United Nations climate summit known as COP26, which is seen as a crucial moment in efforts to address climate change.

"These great teeming ecosystems — these cathedrals of nature," Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain said in announcing the agreement, "are the lungs of our planet."

President Biden said he would work with Congress to deploy up to $9 billion to the global effort through 2030. Additionally, governments committed $12 billion through 2025, and private companies pledged $7 billion to protect and restore forests in a variety of ways, including $1.7 billion for Indigenous peoples. More than 30 financial institutions also vowed to stop investing in companies responsible for deforestation.

It was not the first time world leaders have announced a grand accord to address the critical issue.

In 2014, an accord was reached to halve deforestation by 2020 and end it entirely by 2030. But five years after the pledge, according to one estimate, the area of forest destroyed annually had grown dramatically worse.

Some environmentalists predicted that the same will happen this time.

Supporters of the new pledge note that it expands the number of countries and comes with specific steps to save forests.

"What we're doing here is trying to change the economics on the ground to make forests worth more alive than dead," said Eron Bloomgarden, whose group, Emergent, helps match public and private investors with forested countries and provinces looking to receive payments for reducing deforestation.

The new commitment comes amid growing awareness of the role of nature in tackling the climate crisis. Intact forests and peatlands are natural storehouses of carbon, keeping it sealed away from the atmosphere. But when these areas are logged, burned or drained, the ecosystems switch to releasing greenhouse gases.

If tropical deforestation were a country, it would be the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, according to the World Resources Institute, after China and the United States. Much of the world's deforestation is driven by commodity agriculture as people fell trees to make room for cattle, soy, cocoa and palm oil.

In an emotional speech on Tuesday at the summit, President Ali Bongo of Gabon said other leaders had failed to see how the world undervalued Africa's critical ecosystems.

"The Congo basin is the heart and lungs of the African continent," he said. "Our forests send rain to the Sahel and the Ethiopian highlands. They are critical to the African continent."

Gabon is one of the few nations that absorb more carbon than they emit, with a forest that spans most of the country.

"It is my hope," Mr. Bongo said, "that Glasgow will mark a turning point."

Jonah Kessel/The New York Times

With nations struggling to craft plans for shifting rapidly away from fossil fuels, world leaders at the Glasgow summit are increasingly focused on curbing emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as a crucial short-term strategy for keeping alive the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.

Methane is particularly potent in the short term, although it breaks down in the atmosphere more quickly. The amount of methane in the atmosphere has been rising rapidly over the past two decades, reaching record highs, scientists warned last year.

That means cutting methane emissions today could immediately help slow the rise in global temperatures, scientists say, although it would be no substitute for measures to slash carbon dioxide emissions as well.

"It's going to be next to impossible to remove enough carbon dioxide to get any real benefits for the climate in the first half of the century," Drew Shindell, a professor of earth science at Duke University, said this year. "But if we can make a big enough cut in methane in the next decade, we'll see public health benefits within the decade, and climate benefits within two decades."

Shrinking the world's methane footprint from oil and gas production — an outsized source of global methane emissions — could also be an easier lift.

Better detection and patching up of leaks from oil and gas infrastructure such as wells and pipelines, and stronger rules against the intentional flaring or venting of methane, would go a long way, experts say. It would also save companies money, because capturing the gas means that companies capture more product.

By comparison, bringing down carbon dioxide emissions would require sweeping changes to virtually every corner of the economy — replacing the world's gasoline cars with electric ones, for example, and shuttering almost all of its coal-fired power plants.

The United Nations says that a global effort to reduce emissions from the fossil fuel, waste and agricultural sectors could cut methane emissions as much as 45 percent by 2030 and help avoid nearly 0.3 degrees Celsius of global warming as early as the 2040s.

Sarah Smith, program director of super pollutants at the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental nonprofit, said that while there were clear opportunities to improve methane regulations — for example, by strengthening the leak inspection or flaring standards — Mr. Biden now had a foothold from which to rally the world's nations "to ratchet up ambition and action."

News Analysis

Kemal Jufri for The New York Times

Forests once blanketed the United States and Europe. Humans cut them down, turning the land into farms, towns and cities. In many other places around the world — like South America, the Congo ...

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