Biden’s first-ever UN climate summit snub carries symbolic weight

President Biden is reportedly skipping a global climate change summit for the first time in his presidency.

Not attending the conference, which is set to begin later this week, would mark a significant snub by a president who has vowed to fight global warming.

Yet some experts say his absence is unlikely to actually impact the conference’s outcomes, with both his presence and absence playing more of a symbolic role. 

Multiple news outlets have reported that Biden is not planning to attend, and his public schedule does not list him attending a forum for heads of state slated for this weekend.

Asked about Biden’s plans, White House spokespeople said they “don’t have any travel updates to announce at this time,” but said other key officials — climate envoy John Kerry, White House adviser John Podesta and national climate adviser Ali Zaidi — will travel to the COP28 conference in Dubai.

Climate activists criticized the president over the reported decision Monday.

“This is President Biden missing another opportunity to be a leader on climate change,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, a spokesperson for the Sunrise Movement. 

“After making decisions like approving the Willow Project that are putting the United States on track to produce more oil and gas than ever before it would be wise for him to prove his commitment to climate action,” O’Hanlon added, referencing a massive oil drilling project approved under the administration. 

Jean Su, director of the Energy Justice Program at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly expressed disappointment.

“His absence really shows a lack of commitment to climate right now when it’s the most important time to get to a climate talk,” Su said. 

“You know, this conference is being run by an oil baron,” she noted. Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., is set to lead this year’s event. 

“It’s really important that Biden shows up and challenges the fossil fuel interests that are blatantly running the conference,” Su said. “It’s extremely worrying that President Biden is not coming.”

But others argue that Biden’s absence is unlikely to impact the outcomes of the conference.

Morgan Bazilian, who has previously worked as a European Union negotiator during climate talks, told The Hill that Biden’s absence “does impact the tone or the optics of the event to a certain extent.”

However, he said, “I have never thought that the presence of heads of state were necessary to making these agreements.”

“The civil servants that go, the delegations, already have what they’re going to attempt to do. Having a lot of paparazzi in the form of heads of state at the event rarely does more than raise the profile, which tends to be unnecessary,” added Bazilian, who is now a professor of public policy at the Colorado School of Mines.

The U.S. is currently the second-largest global emitter of greenhouse gases and over the years has released more planet-warming gases than any other nation.

Biden has vowed to make combating climate change a key priority. He passed a bill including major subsidies for renewable energy last year and rejoined the Paris Agreement after former President Trump withdrew the U.S. from it.

Nathan Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability, said the country’s recent actions will give it credence at this year’s conference.

“By any metric, we’re doing extraordinarily well on that over the past couple of years, and I think because of that, we’ll show up really well at the COP,” said Hultman, who previously worked on international climate issues for the Biden administration. 

Hultman also said that the specific agenda items for this year’s conference can “absolutely” be accomplished without the presence of heads of state. 

Dan Lashof, director of the World Resources Institute’s U.S. branch, similarly said it is “always valuable” when a president attends a climate conference because it “puts a brighter spotlight on the issue,” but said Biden’s anticipated absence doesn’t cast doubt on his commitment, given his administration’s actual record. 

Meanwhile, Nat Keohane, president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, told reporters prior to the news of Biden’s plans to skip the event that the impact of him not going would be lessened by Kerry’s prominence on this issue and the global stage in general.

“I think the presence of John Kerry, and the vigor that he brings to this area and the commitment he brings, I think really ameliorates any particular concerns about whether or not the Biden administration is all in,” Keohane said during a press briefing last week.

Biden’s expected absence from the conference comes as he faces criticism from much of his political base regarding his handling of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Young and progressive voters have also pushed back on his approval of several fossil fuel projects and see climate as a higher priority than many of their older and more moderate counterparts.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby, when asked if the Israel-Hamas conflict has impacted other priorities like COP28, said Biden “has been very much focused on the conflict between Israel and Hamas over the last month or so.”

“We’re going to have a robust representation, obviously, and we expect to have a productive — it will be productive,” press secretary Karine Jeanne-Pierre added, referencing Kerry, Podesta and Zaidi specifically. 

Su said, however, that Biden not attending “just adds further disappointment, especially to young voters.”

In a follow-up email, she added that Biden and the U.S. are “very happy to immediately mobilize massive resources for war” but not to fight climate change.

“It is clear that he is not treating the climate crisis like the existential emergency it is and instead is failing to commit any real resources to fight an effort that requires wartime resource mobilization,” Su said. 

But Bazilian said the specific decision not to attend COP28 is unlikely to register compared to issues such as the Middle East and the economy.

“I just don’t see the general voting public in the United States has the international climate talks on its priority list of topics,” he said. “I can’t see how climate change at an international event taking place halfway across the world makes a dent.”

Alex Gangitano contributed.