Biden vows to halve US emissions as planet faces ‘moment of peril’

US President Joe Biden convened leaders of the world’s most powerful countries yesterday to try to spur global efforts against climate change.

It drew commitments from Chinese president Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin to co-operate on cutting emissions despite their own sharp rivalries with the US.

“Meeting this moment is about more than preserving our planet,” Mr Biden declared at the online summit of 40 world leaders.

"It’s about providing a better future for all of us,” he said, calling it “a moment of peril but a moment of opportunity”.

“The signs are unmistakable. the science is undeniable, the cost of inaction keeps mounting.”

His commitment is to cut US fossil fuel emissions up to 52pc by 2030, marking a return by the US to global climate efforts after four years of withdrawal under Donald Trump’s administration.

Mr Biden’s administration is sketching out a vision of a prosperous, clean-energy US where factories churn out cutting-edge batteries for export, line workers re-lay an efficient national electrical grid and crews cap abandoned oil and gas rigs and coal mines.

Japan announced its own new 46pc emissions reduction target, and South Korea said it would stop public financing of new coal-fired power plants, as the US and its allies sought to build momentum via the summit.

The Covid pandemic compelled the summit to play out as a climate telethon-style livestream, limiting opportunities for spontaneous interaction and negotiation. The opening was rife with small technological glitches, including echoes, random beeps and off-screen voices.

But the US summit also marshalled an impressive display of the world’s most powerful leaders speaking on the single cause of climate change.

China’s Mr Xi, whose country is the world’s biggest emissions culprit, followed by the US, spoke first among the other global figures.

He made no reference to non-climate disputes that had made it uncertain until Wednesday that he would even take part in the US summit, and said China would work with America in cutting emissions.

“To protect the environment is to protect productivity, and to boost the environment is to boost productivity. It’s as simple as that,” Mr Xi said.

Mr Putin, whose government has been publicly irate over Mr Biden’s characterisation of him as a “killer” for Russia’s aggressive moves against its opponents, made no mention of his feuding with Mr Biden in his own climate remarks.

“Russia is genuinely interested in galvanising international co-operation so as to look further for effective solutions to climate change as well as to all other vital challenges,” Mr Putin said.

Russia by some measures is the world’s fourth-biggest emitter of climate-damaging fossil fuel fumes.

However, Russia and China announced no specific new emissions cuts themselves.

The format meant a cavalcade of short speeches by world leaders, some scripted, some apparently more impromptu. “This is not bunny-hugging,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said of the climate efforts. “This is about growth and jobs.”

The Biden administration’s pledge would require by far the most ambitious US climate effort ever, nearly doubling the reductions the Obama administration had committed to.