President Joe Biden departed Washington, D.C. on Thursday for the most consequential climate summit since the signing of the Paris accord in 2015, with significant barriers to his signature climate package still standing.
The president will land in Glasgow, Scotland without having signed a signature climate package into law and congressional Democrats still sputtering on the broader social-spending bill. There’s confidence — though not unanimity — among Democrats that he’ll arrive with sufficient detail to galvanize the rest of the world toward higher climate ambitions, though the party had hoped to send him overseas with something more concrete.
“We’ve never been more serious about passing climate legislation,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a Foreign Relations Committee member and a top Biden ally. “This is real. This is different than years past. I know the trust gap exists, but I think we’re gonna answer the bell.”
Democratic leaders released a framework on the spending package on Thursday morning — one they hope satisfies both progressives and centrists, particularly Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). And the climate portion is poised to be the largest of the bill.
But Democrats are still far from unified on a range of significant hang-ups, from the revenue side to the policy details themselves. They wanted Biden to arrive in Glasgow for the COP26 summit on climate change with deliverables in hand on what the White House views as a national-security priority.
“I think we need to give him a good hand to play. I don’t think that means a law has to be enacted,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the Senate’s most vocal climate hawk. “That’s not the standard.”
Without that, Democrats say, a detailed framework and a commitment from all Democrats on Capitol Hill would suffice. But it’s unclear if party leaders could even achieve that — jeopardizing Biden’s stated goal of marking a clean break from the Donald Trump presidency, which saw the U.S. almost entirely disengage on climate issues globally.
“It’s obvious that he would be strengthened to go to COP26 with something in hand,” Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said. “And the best way to lead is by example. And that example is best exemplified by saying we have a commitment to do this, and we will do it and we have the support of Congress to do it.”
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who will be accompanying the president on his three-day trip to Rome for the G20 Summit and two days in Glasgow for COP26, pushed back on the idea that Biden’s credibility will take a hit if he shows up without having a deal in place on Capitol Hill.
“I think you’ve got a sophisticated set of world leaders who understand politics in their own country, and understand American democracy, and recognize that working through a complex, far-reaching negotiation on some of the largest investments in modern memory in the United States — that that takes time,” Sullivan said on Tuesday.
“And so I don’t think that world leaders will look at this as a binary issue — ‘Is it done? Is it not done?’ They’ll say, 'Is President Biden on track to deliver on what he said he’s going to deliver?' And we believe, one way or the other, he will be on track to do that.”
Democrats are eyeing an investment of $555 billion in climate change programs. Remaining points of negotiation include how to reinvest $150 billion toward a clean electricity program scuttled by Manchin, as well as whether to assess a fee on methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas.
“That’s a lovely top-line number,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), a progressive climate advocate, quipped. “But the details really matter, including where the balance of some of that is being spent.” At the same time, he added, “we all want the president to have as much stature and credibility as possible on the world stage.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a top climate hawk, said success or failure for Biden will depend on the net reduction in emissions that the package could achieve.
“Alone, it does not do much,” Whitehouse said of the price tag for the climate portions of the bill.
Whitehouse and other climate hawks say they’re flexible about the policies deployed, as long as they cumulatively limit emissions at levels to keep global temperature increases below 2 degrees Celsius.
“It’s less about the number and it's more about what it funds,” added Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), who serves on the Energy and Intelligence committees. “You can make $500-600 [billion] add up to the goals that [Biden] has articulated consistently. So long as we have the right investments, he’ll be able to go make a very credible case at Glasgow that we’re back and we’re leading.”
Biden’s Democratic allies said it was important for the party to have a united front on combating climate change as the president prepares for the COP26 summit. That would help Biden make the case that while the U.S. hasn’t yet crossed the finish line, there’s sufficient support on Capitol Hill to get it done.
“It’d be much better to have a deal in place before he leaves, but I think the writing’s on the wall that we’re very close to passing the most significant piece of legislation in the history of the country,” added Murphy.
For their part, Republicans are blasting Biden for flying to Scotland, while not doing enough in their view to address high energy prices domestically.
“Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry and apparently about four planeloads of Democrats can head over to Scotland and wave the white flag of surrender: to take us from being a nation that is energy dominant and energy wealthy to a nation of energy weakness,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Wednesday.
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