‘We may have less to offer’: US negotiators confront diminished standing at COP29
As dozens of heads of state arrived in Azerbaijan for the annual United Nations climate talks this week, one absent world leader’s name was on everyone’s lips. At press conference after press conference, questions arose about the election of Donald Trump. The U.S. president-elect has threatened to pull the United States out of the landmark Paris climate agreement — for a second time — and slow down the country’s transition to renewable energy.
The Biden administration has tried to project confidence in the early days of the conference, which is known as COP29, given the country’s status as the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter of planet-warming carbon. At a packed-house presser on the conference’s first day, President Joe Biden’s senior climate advisor, John Podesta, said he expected many of Biden’s clean energy achievements — which are projected to …