U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry attends the Climate Ambition Summit at the United Nations Headquarters on September 20, 2023, in New York City.
The Climate Ambition Summit Exposed US Fossil Fuel Failure
President Joe Biden still has a chance to correct course before COP28.
It was stunning to see U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry stalking the sidelines of the United Nations’ historic Climate Ambition Summit last week, firmly shut out from the opportunity to speak. The United States isn’t used to being sidelined on the global stage. Indeed it may be the first time in U.N. history that the U.S. was barred from speaking at an international summit.
The U.S. got itself into the climate summit’s “time-out corner” because of its wretched record on fossil fuels. And the stakes couldn’t be higher for President Joe Biden to correct course.
In line with his “Roadmap for a Livable Planet,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres set strict guidelines for those invited to speak at the summit. Chief among them: concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels.
President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It was that demand that brought us and 75,000 others into the streets on the Sunday ahead of the summit for the “March to End Fossil Fuels.”
After the hottest summer on record and its devastating consequences from Lahaina to Libya, people around the world are waking up to the urgency of ending the extraction and use of oil, gas, and coal, which cause 85% of climate-heating pollution.
That urgency was palpable in Guterres’ opening remarks as he declared to leaders that “the future of humanity is in your hands.”
Indeed, Biden has ample tools at hand to confront fossil fuels and protect humanity. But many of the president’s actions have done more to boost the “foot-dragging, arm-twisting… naked greed of entrenched interests” that Guterres railed against.
Despite its climate rhetoric, the U.S. is the biggest oil and gas producer in the world and the number one exporter of gas.
At a time when the narrow path to a stable climate demands no new fossil fuel expansion, the United States is also the world’s largest expander of oil and gas. The U.S. alone accounts for a full third of planned oil and gas expansion from now through 2050, according to the groundbreaking “Planet Wreckers” report from Oil Change International.
Another new study from Jeremy Symons finds that greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. fossil fuel exports are expected to undermine emissions reductions from the Inflation Reduction Act.
After New York’s historic summit and march, President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It’s telling that while Kerry sat on the sidelines, the only U.S. leader invited to speak was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration has ramped down oil and gas permitting and just launched a landmark lawsuit against Big Oil. The typically staid U.N. hall erupted in applause when Newsom declared, “This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis.”
All this is testament to the incredible strides we’ve made as an advocacy community on fossil fuels. The U.N. Secretary-General holding this summit with its laser focus on fossil fuels is a response to years of vocal clamoring by low-lying nation-states like Tuvalu and Vanuatu, climate scientists, advocacy groups, frontline leaders, and mass mobilizations that have relentlessly pushed the focus from vague ‘climate action’ onto ending oil, gas, and coal.
We have top-down pressure from the U.N. chief, and bottom-up pressure from people around the world who mobilized in 700 actions from the Philippines to Germany, Nepal to the North Pole—all culminating in 75,000 marchers joyfully and resolutely pounding the pavement in New York.
Biden is clearly feeling the pressure. The same day as the summit, the president announced the creation of the American Climate Corps.
Our friend and fellow march organizer, 18-year-old Keanu Arpels-Josiah, astutely pointed out that while it doesn’t address fossil fuels, the move shows “Biden clearly knows he can use his executive powers to take bolder steps on climate.”
In the two months between now and the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Biden needs to use those powers to make up for drastic missteps and lost time.
The president doesn’t control everything, but he can do much more to protect people and our planet—all without Congress. Essential actions for Biden to take now include:
- Stop approving new fossil fuel projects like the massive CP2 liquified natural gas export terminal slated for the Gulf Coast. Such projects lock in fossil fuel dependence for decades—and push us far past our climate breaking point.
- Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and revoke permits for the Willow Project and Alaska LNG, a massive liquefied gas export facility 10 times more climate polluting than Willow.
- Issue the upcoming offshore oil leasing “Five Year Plan” with no new leases.
- Declare a national climate emergency to reinstate the crude oil export ban and halt hundreds of billions in private taxpayer dollars funding fossil fuel projects abroad.
- Direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national limits for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
- Direct the Justice Department to prosecute polluters and utilities for the damages they cause under nuisance and fraud suits, as Gov. Newsom has just done in California, and bring antitrust violation suits against entities that obstruct the transition to clean energy.
Biden must also come to COP28 in December with commitments to an updated Nationally Determined Contribution that includes a commitment to stopping all new fossil fuel expansion and phasing out existing production. It should also include a recognition of the greenhouse gas pollution emitted by U.S. fossil fuel exports—a hefty line item that gets put on other countries’ climate balance sheets while evading the U.S.’ emission totals.
Not only will these actions make bold leaps toward a livable future for all, they’ll be hugely beneficial to the economy. The International Energy Agency’s latest report finds that staying below 1.5°C of warming will save $12 trillion worldwide and create more jobs than are lost.
So what is President Biden waiting for to become the global climate leader the world desperately needs?
Taking urgent actions to end fossil fuels can help Biden save face on the world stage and secure his legacy, but he should take them to save people and wildlife from climate catastrophe.
FINAL DAY! This is urgent.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just hours left in our Spring Campaign, we're still falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
It was stunning to see U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry stalking the sidelines of the United Nations’ historic Climate Ambition Summit last week, firmly shut out from the opportunity to speak. The United States isn’t used to being sidelined on the global stage. Indeed it may be the first time in U.N. history that the U.S. was barred from speaking at an international summit.
The U.S. got itself into the climate summit’s “time-out corner” because of its wretched record on fossil fuels. And the stakes couldn’t be higher for President Joe Biden to correct course.
In line with his “Roadmap for a Livable Planet,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres set strict guidelines for those invited to speak at the summit. Chief among them: concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels.
President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It was that demand that brought us and 75,000 others into the streets on the Sunday ahead of the summit for the “March to End Fossil Fuels.”
After the hottest summer on record and its devastating consequences from Lahaina to Libya, people around the world are waking up to the urgency of ending the extraction and use of oil, gas, and coal, which cause 85% of climate-heating pollution.
That urgency was palpable in Guterres’ opening remarks as he declared to leaders that “the future of humanity is in your hands.”
Indeed, Biden has ample tools at hand to confront fossil fuels and protect humanity. But many of the president’s actions have done more to boost the “foot-dragging, arm-twisting… naked greed of entrenched interests” that Guterres railed against.
Despite its climate rhetoric, the U.S. is the biggest oil and gas producer in the world and the number one exporter of gas.
At a time when the narrow path to a stable climate demands no new fossil fuel expansion, the United States is also the world’s largest expander of oil and gas. The U.S. alone accounts for a full third of planned oil and gas expansion from now through 2050, according to the groundbreaking “Planet Wreckers” report from Oil Change International.
Another new study from Jeremy Symons finds that greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. fossil fuel exports are expected to undermine emissions reductions from the Inflation Reduction Act.
After New York’s historic summit and march, President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It’s telling that while Kerry sat on the sidelines, the only U.S. leader invited to speak was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration has ramped down oil and gas permitting and just launched a landmark lawsuit against Big Oil. The typically staid U.N. hall erupted in applause when Newsom declared, “This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis.”
All this is testament to the incredible strides we’ve made as an advocacy community on fossil fuels. The U.N. Secretary-General holding this summit with its laser focus on fossil fuels is a response to years of vocal clamoring by low-lying nation-states like Tuvalu and Vanuatu, climate scientists, advocacy groups, frontline leaders, and mass mobilizations that have relentlessly pushed the focus from vague ‘climate action’ onto ending oil, gas, and coal.
We have top-down pressure from the U.N. chief, and bottom-up pressure from people around the world who mobilized in 700 actions from the Philippines to Germany, Nepal to the North Pole—all culminating in 75,000 marchers joyfully and resolutely pounding the pavement in New York.
Biden is clearly feeling the pressure. The same day as the summit, the president announced the creation of the American Climate Corps.
Our friend and fellow march organizer, 18-year-old Keanu Arpels-Josiah, astutely pointed out that while it doesn’t address fossil fuels, the move shows “Biden clearly knows he can use his executive powers to take bolder steps on climate.”
In the two months between now and the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Biden needs to use those powers to make up for drastic missteps and lost time.
The president doesn’t control everything, but he can do much more to protect people and our planet—all without Congress. Essential actions for Biden to take now include:
- Stop approving new fossil fuel projects like the massive CP2 liquified natural gas export terminal slated for the Gulf Coast. Such projects lock in fossil fuel dependence for decades—and push us far past our climate breaking point.
- Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and revoke permits for the Willow Project and Alaska LNG, a massive liquefied gas export facility 10 times more climate polluting than Willow.
- Issue the upcoming offshore oil leasing “Five Year Plan” with no new leases.
- Declare a national climate emergency to reinstate the crude oil export ban and halt hundreds of billions in private taxpayer dollars funding fossil fuel projects abroad.
- Direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national limits for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
- Direct the Justice Department to prosecute polluters and utilities for the damages they cause under nuisance and fraud suits, as Gov. Newsom has just done in California, and bring antitrust violation suits against entities that obstruct the transition to clean energy.
Biden must also come to COP28 in December with commitments to an updated Nationally Determined Contribution that includes a commitment to stopping all new fossil fuel expansion and phasing out existing production. It should also include a recognition of the greenhouse gas pollution emitted by U.S. fossil fuel exports—a hefty line item that gets put on other countries’ climate balance sheets while evading the U.S.’ emission totals.
Not only will these actions make bold leaps toward a livable future for all, they’ll be hugely beneficial to the economy. The International Energy Agency’s latest report finds that staying below 1.5°C of warming will save $12 trillion worldwide and create more jobs than are lost.
So what is President Biden waiting for to become the global climate leader the world desperately needs?
Taking urgent actions to end fossil fuels can help Biden save face on the world stage and secure his legacy, but he should take them to save people and wildlife from climate catastrophe.
- Rich Nations' COP26 Failures Are Modern Colonialism at Its Worst ›
- Ahead of Climate March, House Dems Urge Biden to End Fossil Fuel Drilling on Federal Lands ›
- 'End Fossil Fuels' Protests Kick Off Worldwide Ahead of UN Climate Ambition Summit ›
- Nearly 400 Scientists Tell Biden to 'Embrace Demands of the March to End Fossil Fuels' ›
- G20 Leaders Rebuked for Latest 'Incomprehensible Failure' on Climate Crisis ›
- In Effort to 'Move the Needle,' UN Chief Announces Special Summit on Climate Crisis ›
- Opinion | Newsom’s Big Oil Lawsuit Targets Roots of Climate Crisis | Common Dreams ›
- States, Tribe, and Green Groups to Sue EPA Over Failing to Cap Climate Pollution ›
- Hundreds of Scientists Urge Biden to Back Speedy 'Phaseout of All Fossil Fuels' at COP28 ›
- Opinion | Biden Must Act Now to End US Funds for Fossil Fuels Abroad | Common Dreams ›
- Report Shows How to End 'Climate Colonialism' and Ensure a Just Transition for Global South | Common Dreams ›
It was stunning to see U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry stalking the sidelines of the United Nations’ historic Climate Ambition Summit last week, firmly shut out from the opportunity to speak. The United States isn’t used to being sidelined on the global stage. Indeed it may be the first time in U.N. history that the U.S. was barred from speaking at an international summit.
The U.S. got itself into the climate summit’s “time-out corner” because of its wretched record on fossil fuels. And the stakes couldn’t be higher for President Joe Biden to correct course.
In line with his “Roadmap for a Livable Planet,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres set strict guidelines for those invited to speak at the summit. Chief among them: concrete plans to phase out fossil fuels.
President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It was that demand that brought us and 75,000 others into the streets on the Sunday ahead of the summit for the “March to End Fossil Fuels.”
After the hottest summer on record and its devastating consequences from Lahaina to Libya, people around the world are waking up to the urgency of ending the extraction and use of oil, gas, and coal, which cause 85% of climate-heating pollution.
That urgency was palpable in Guterres’ opening remarks as he declared to leaders that “the future of humanity is in your hands.”
Indeed, Biden has ample tools at hand to confront fossil fuels and protect humanity. But many of the president’s actions have done more to boost the “foot-dragging, arm-twisting… naked greed of entrenched interests” that Guterres railed against.
Despite its climate rhetoric, the U.S. is the biggest oil and gas producer in the world and the number one exporter of gas.
At a time when the narrow path to a stable climate demands no new fossil fuel expansion, the United States is also the world’s largest expander of oil and gas. The U.S. alone accounts for a full third of planned oil and gas expansion from now through 2050, according to the groundbreaking “Planet Wreckers” report from Oil Change International.
Another new study from Jeremy Symons finds that greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. fossil fuel exports are expected to undermine emissions reductions from the Inflation Reduction Act.
After New York’s historic summit and march, President Biden can no longer hide his abysmal fossil fuel record behind renewable energy investments. The oil rig in the room has been exposed for all the world to see.
It’s telling that while Kerry sat on the sidelines, the only U.S. leader invited to speak was California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose administration has ramped down oil and gas permitting and just launched a landmark lawsuit against Big Oil. The typically staid U.N. hall erupted in applause when Newsom declared, “This climate crisis is a fossil fuel crisis.”
All this is testament to the incredible strides we’ve made as an advocacy community on fossil fuels. The U.N. Secretary-General holding this summit with its laser focus on fossil fuels is a response to years of vocal clamoring by low-lying nation-states like Tuvalu and Vanuatu, climate scientists, advocacy groups, frontline leaders, and mass mobilizations that have relentlessly pushed the focus from vague ‘climate action’ onto ending oil, gas, and coal.
We have top-down pressure from the U.N. chief, and bottom-up pressure from people around the world who mobilized in 700 actions from the Philippines to Germany, Nepal to the North Pole—all culminating in 75,000 marchers joyfully and resolutely pounding the pavement in New York.
Biden is clearly feeling the pressure. The same day as the summit, the president announced the creation of the American Climate Corps.
Our friend and fellow march organizer, 18-year-old Keanu Arpels-Josiah, astutely pointed out that while it doesn’t address fossil fuels, the move shows “Biden clearly knows he can use his executive powers to take bolder steps on climate.”
In the two months between now and the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, Biden needs to use those powers to make up for drastic missteps and lost time.
The president doesn’t control everything, but he can do much more to protect people and our planet—all without Congress. Essential actions for Biden to take now include:
- Stop approving new fossil fuel projects like the massive CP2 liquified natural gas export terminal slated for the Gulf Coast. Such projects lock in fossil fuel dependence for decades—and push us far past our climate breaking point.
- Phase out oil and gas production on public lands and revoke permits for the Willow Project and Alaska LNG, a massive liquefied gas export facility 10 times more climate polluting than Willow.
- Issue the upcoming offshore oil leasing “Five Year Plan” with no new leases.
- Declare a national climate emergency to reinstate the crude oil export ban and halt hundreds of billions in private taxpayer dollars funding fossil fuel projects abroad.
- Direct the Environmental Protection Agency to establish national limits for greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.
- Direct the Justice Department to prosecute polluters and utilities for the damages they cause under nuisance and fraud suits, as Gov. Newsom has just done in California, and bring antitrust violation suits against entities that obstruct the transition to clean energy.
Biden must also come to COP28 in December with commitments to an updated Nationally Determined Contribution that includes a commitment to stopping all new fossil fuel expansion and phasing out existing production. It should also include a recognition of the greenhouse gas pollution emitted by U.S. fossil fuel exports—a hefty line item that gets put on other countries’ climate balance sheets while evading the U.S.’ emission totals.
Not only will these actions make bold leaps toward a livable future for all, they’ll be hugely beneficial to the economy. The International Energy Agency’s latest report finds that staying below 1.5°C of warming will save $12 trillion worldwide and create more jobs than are lost.
So what is President Biden waiting for to become the global climate leader the world desperately needs?
Taking urgent actions to end fossil fuels can help Biden save face on the world stage and secure his legacy, but he should take them to save people and wildlife from climate catastrophe.
- Rich Nations' COP26 Failures Are Modern Colonialism at Its Worst ›
- Ahead of Climate March, House Dems Urge Biden to End Fossil Fuel Drilling on Federal Lands ›
- 'End Fossil Fuels' Protests Kick Off Worldwide Ahead of UN Climate Ambition Summit ›
- Nearly 400 Scientists Tell Biden to 'Embrace Demands of the March to End Fossil Fuels' ›
- G20 Leaders Rebuked for Latest 'Incomprehensible Failure' on Climate Crisis ›
- In Effort to 'Move the Needle,' UN Chief Announces Special Summit on Climate Crisis ›
- Opinion | Newsom’s Big Oil Lawsuit Targets Roots of Climate Crisis | Common Dreams ›
- States, Tribe, and Green Groups to Sue EPA Over Failing to Cap Climate Pollution ›
- Hundreds of Scientists Urge Biden to Back Speedy 'Phaseout of All Fossil Fuels' at COP28 ›
- Opinion | Biden Must Act Now to End US Funds for Fossil Fuels Abroad | Common Dreams ›
- Report Shows How to End 'Climate Colonialism' and Ensure a Just Transition for Global South | Common Dreams ›