Summary
That’s all for today – thanks for following along and have a nice weekend. Some key links from the day:
- Joe Biden will make his first foreign trip as president to the UK, attending the G7 summit in Cornwall in June before traveling to Brussels.
- The US has lifted its pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after advisers recommended that it be distributed with a warning label affixed about rare blood clots.
- California’s governor has moved to ban new fracking permits by 2024 and halt all oil extraction by 2045.
- A conservative academic who was selected by Biden to serve on a commission on reform of the US supreme court was an outspoken defender of Brett Kavanaugh, and previously suggested Christine Blasey Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, could possibly be investigated for perjury.
- Biden has tapped Rick Spinrad to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency at the vanguard of climate, weather and ocean science for the United States.
- Biden has urged world leaders to ramp up their investment in clean energy to ensure the planet does not reach the “point of no return” in the climate crisis, as he closed a major summit of governments at the White House.
- Lawmakers urged Biden to back a “moral” patent waiver to speed up vaccine access across the globe.
- The bones of Black children who died in 1985 after their home was bombed by Philadelphia police in a confrontation with the Black liberation group which was raising them are being used as a “case study” in an online forensic anthropology course presented by an Ivy League professor.
- Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic athlete and reality television star, has announced she will be challenging California governor Gavin Newsom in the impending gubernatorial recall election.
Updated
The CDC’s decision to lift pause on Johnson & Johnson means that the single-dose vaccine could become available again starting this weekend.
In Los Angeles, the county says it is preparing to resume J&J administration as soon as possible:
L.A. County prepping to resume administering Johnson & Johnson vaccine as soon as possible https://t.co/g5tTy8RU2p
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) April 23, 2021
A county health official told the LA Times there were about 13,000 available J&J doses in the county’s network, with an additional rough 25,000 with local providers.
Health authorities at the CDC and the FDA had temporarily halted the vaccine distribution on 13 April while six cases of very rare blood clots in women aged 18-49 were investigated.
FDA and CDC lift pause on Johnson & Johnson vaccine
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have formally lifted the pause on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine after an advisory panel said it should be distributed with a warning label affixed, but that the benefits of preventing Covid-19 still outweigh the risks of rare blood clots.
“Safety is our top priority. This pause was an example of our extensive safety monitoring working as they were designed to work—identifying even these small number of cases. We’ve lifted the pause based on the FDA and CDC’s review of all available data and in consultation with medical experts and based on recommendations from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices,” said Dr Janet Woodcock, acting FDA commissioner, in a statement Friday night.
“We are confident that this vaccine continues to meet our standards for safety, effectiveness and quality. We recommend people with questions about which vaccine is right for them have those discussions with their health care provider.”
Health authorities had put Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine distribution on “pause” on 13 April while six cases of very rare blood clots in women aged 18-49 were investigated.
Since the pause, scientists have found nine more cases of the clots. That means among the more than 7.98m doses of Johnson & Johnson distributed, vaccine safety monitoring systems found 15 total cases. Doctors on the panel said the fact researchers were able to identify the very rare associated disorder shows the strength of US vaccine safety monitoring.
Alabama enacts ban on trans youth athletes
Alabama’s governor has signed into law a bill banning transgender youth from playing on the sports teams that match their gender, making it the fourth state this year to pass an anti-trans law targeting school athletics.
Republican governor Kay Ivey signed the Alabama bill today, which restricts trans students from participating in K-12 sports. GOP governors in Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas have signed similar measures this year, and Idaho passed the first anti-trans sports ban last year, but the law has been challenged in court.
Other states have also passed laws outlawing trans youth healthcare, part of a wave of anti-trans bills that experts say are rooted in misinformation and will have devastating consequences for vulnerable children.
Some Republican governors have rejected anti-trans sports bans, including North Dakota’s governor Doug Burgum this week. The Democratic governor of Kansas vetoed a similar bill on Thursday, saying, “This legislation sends a devastating message that Kansas is not welcoming to all children and their families, including those who are transgender — who are already at a higher risk of bullying, discrimination, and suicide.”
Our earlier coverage:
My colleague Jessica Glenza has more details on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisors’ recommendation that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine should be distributed with a warning label affixed:
The change comes after distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was temporarily halted while scientists investigated rare but dangerous blood clots with low platelet counts linked to the shot.
“This pause was essential to our ability to inform the public, inform physicians and the acquire more data for presentation and for analysis,” said Dr Jose Romero, chair of the CDC’s committee on immunization practices, which advises on how to best use vaccines. The committee vote was 10 to four in favor of recommending the vaccine for adults older than 18. There was one abstention.
Health authorities at the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) put Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine distribution on “pause” on 13 April while six cases of very rare blood clots in women aged 18-49 were investigated.
4. About 4M of the J&J doses used so far were given to women. The risk seemed highest among women in their 30s. (It's early days. A few additional cases in another age group could change this picture quickly.) pic.twitter.com/uXamw0EmEw
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) April 23, 2021
Since the pause, scientists have found nine more cases of the clots. That means among the more than 7.98m doses of Johnson & Johnson distributed, vaccine safety monitoring systems found 15 total cases. Doctors on the panel said the fact researchers were able to identify the very rare associated disorder shows the strength of US vaccine safety monitoring.
All confirmed cases were among women, most were middle-aged. Two were cases in women older than 50. The Johnson & Johnson clinical trial also found one case in a male and cases among men are under investigation.
Read more:
Updated
In the San Francisco Bay Area, an officer who fatally shot two people in separate incidents is facing criminal charges.
Officer Andrew Hall, a deputy with the Contra Costa county sheriff’s office, who was assigned to the Danville police department, was charged on Wednesday with manslaughter and assault in the fatal shooting of an unarmed civilian in November 2018. Hall shot Laudemer Arboleda, a 33-year-old Filipino man, nine times during a slow-moving car chase.
Body-camera footage was also released this week showing an incident from last month where Hall shot and killed a Black man in the middle of a busy intersection about a minute after trying to stop him on suspicion of throwing rocks at cars.
The video released this week shows Hall shooting Tyrell Wilson, 33, within seconds of asking him to drop a knife on 11 March in Danville.
More details here:
Updated
An unprecedented GOP effort to audit the vote in Maricopa county, Arizona got off to a rocky start today.
A state judge has ordered the effort halted over concerns the auditors were not complying with state law. The audit ultimately wasn’t stopped, however, because the state Democratic party, which brought the lawsuit, declined to put up a $1m bond ordered by the judge to incur any lost funds during the pause, according to the Arizona Mirror.
A reporter for the Arizona Republic tweeted on Monday that those counting the ballots had pens with blue ink – a huge no-no among election officials because voters usually use black or blue ink to mark election officials. The reporter, who was only allowed into the audit because she signed up to work as an election worker, was later banned from tweeting updates.
Doug is running this audit. He told me that his understanding was that blue ink was fine - that the ballots only read black ink.
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) April 23, 2021
Then he came back and said actually it seems I am correct. But he still seemed unsure. He said that they would work on this.
I’ve been banned from further updates until my shift is over.
— Jen Fifield (@JenAFifield) April 23, 2021
Republicans are counting all 2.1m ballots cast in Maricopa county, the largest in Arizona, even though two county audits have certified the validity of election results there. Election experts have said the audit is unnecessary and appears to be a thinly-veiled effort to stoke fears about election results.
During a press call on Friday, experts in election administration said they were deeply concerned about how little transparency the audit team was disclosing into their processes, including the exact processes and standards counters would use to adjudicate ballots and if and how the equipment being used had been tested. There are also lingering questions about who is funding the effort – the final cost is much higher than the $150,000 the Arizona senate allocated – and transparency, as reporters are not currently being allowed to monitor the event.
“It just feels so reckless to me,” said Jennifer Morrell, a former Colorado election official who specializes in election audits. “We’re setting a new precedent...we’re completely circumventing all the guardrails that are already in place, all the guardrails that are already there.”
California moves to ban fracking by 2024
Hi all - Sam Levin in Los Angeles here, continuing our live coverage for the rest of the day.
In California, the governor has moved today to ban new fracking permits by 2024 and halt all oil extraction by 2045. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order that paves the way for the state to halt new fracking permits within the next few years, directing the state’s department of conservation to draft a mandate by 2024. His order also directs the state’s air resources board to consider how to enact a ban on all extraction over the next 25 years.
California is America’s largest state and produces the third largest amount of oil in the country. It would be the first state to end all extraction. My colleague Maanvi Singh has the details here:
Interim summary
After that important news from the CDC advisory panel, the US east coast team will now hand the blog over to the west coast team, where Sam Levin will take readers through the next few hours.
Lots more to come as the news of the J&J vaccine develops further, so do stay tuned.
Main news today so far includes:
- CDC advisory panel recommends re-starting administration of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine after a lengthy pause to assess risks of exceptionally rare blood clotting in a very small number of women.
- A US Capitol Police officer testified today against a New York man accused of threatening to kill members of Congress.
- When Joe Biden visits the UK in June in the first overseas trip of his presidency, he will not only attend the G7 meeting in Cornwall, the county in the south-west of England, but he will have a bilateral encounter with British prime minister Boris Johnson.
- Biden to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday and travel to Georgia on Thursday, his 100th day in office.
- Jennifer Granholm, US energy secretary, said at the virtual climate summit this morning that clean technology was “our generation’s moonshot”.
- Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete, reality TV star and transgender activist, has filed her initial paperwork to run for governor of California.
- Joe Biden opened the second and last day of the virtual global summit on the climate crisis by addressing the task of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help curb heating (in addition to cutting greenhouse gas emissions), saying that the US “looks forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise.”
Members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices agreed the benefits of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine outweigh the risks from extremely rare instances of blood clots linked with the vaccine.
The one-shot vaccine, manufactured by J&J subsidiary Janssen, can resume in the US after a second week of being paused out of what the government called “an abundance of caution”.
The language of the vote by the advisory panel said: “The Janssen Covid-19 vaccine is recommended for persons 18 years of age and older in the U.S. population under the FDA’s emergency use authorization”, CNN reported.
“The vote is 10 in favor, four opposed and one abstention. The motion carries,” Dr. Jose Romero, Arkansas secretary of health and chair of ACIP, said, the cable news channel added.
Earlier, the US’s top infectious diseases official, Anthony Fauci, had said the risks of Covids-19 “far outweighs the risk of this very, very rare occurrence [of blood clots]”
CDC director Rochelle Walensky said earlier that there are “plenty of people who are interested” in receiving the J&J vaccine.
CDC advisers recommend re-starting administration of Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine
This means it’s likely that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will agree that the pause in administration of the J&J vaccine can be lifted for people in the US over the age of 18.
We’ll wait for more details coming out of the CDC HQ in Atlanta and bring you that shortly.
Georgia’s state attorney general has resigned as chairman of the national Republican Attorneys General Association.
Georgia’s top prosecutor has resigned as chairman of the national Republican Attorneys General Association, saying he has had a “fundamental difference of opinion” with some of the other 24 members since the group encouraged the crowd that breached the US Capitol on January 6.
Chris Carr, Georgia’s GOP attorney general and a potential US Senate candidate, wrote in a letter last week that he was quitting as the leader of the association because of an irreconcilable rift over the organization’s direction, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
His letter cited the departure of the group’s executive director, Adam Piper, who resigned shortly after it was revealed that RAGA’s policy arm paid for robocalls urging supporters of then-President Donald Trump to march on the Capitol to press for overturning the outcome the election the day of the riot.
“The fundamental difference of opinion began with vastly opposite views of the significance of the events of January 6 and the resistance by some to accepting the resignation of the executive director,” Carr wrote in the April 16 letter obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“The differences have continued as we have tried to restore RAGA’s reputation internally and externally and were reflected once again during the process of choosing the next executive director.”
Carr’s spokeswoman has repeatedly said he had no knowledge or involvement in the robocalls, which were promoted by the Rule of Law Defense Fund. He’s also condemned the violence and joined other AGs who declared that “such actions will not be allowed to go unchecked.”
It’s not immediately clear what led to his resignation, as Carr previously indicated he would stay in his leadership post and work to overhaul the organization from within. But the decision to distance himself from RAGA comes as Carr weighs a challenge to U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a newly elected Democrat who is up for reelection in November 2022.
You can read the full report here.
Ted Cruz “maintains ties to right-wing group” despite its extremist messaging - report.
Now here comes a Washington Post investigation about the polarizing Texas right-wing Senator (so illuminatingly played on Saturday Night Live by Aidy Bryant these days).
The newspaper brings us this intriguing story:
On Aug. 4, 2019, the day after a gunman who had posted a hateful diatribe against Hispanics fatally shot 23 people at an El Paso Walmart, a leader of a tea party group in Texas said on Facebook: “You’re not going to demographically replace a once proud, strong people without getting blow-back.”
His wife, the founder of the group, in the Fort Worth suburbs of Tarrant County, added in a comment: “I don’t condone the actions, but I certainly understand where they came from.”
Ten days later, amid a brewing backlash over the comments by Fred and Julie McCarty, the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party posted an undated testimonial from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) wishing the group a happy 10th anniversary as it rebranded itself as True Texas Project.
“Thank you for the incredible work you do,” Cruz said, in the only on-camera endorsement from an elected official posted on the group’s Facebook and YouTube pages to mark the occasion. “Julie, Fred, thank you for your passion.”
A Washington Post review of True Texas Project’s activities and social media shows that Cruz has continued to embrace the group, even as its nativist rhetoric and divisive tactics have alienated some other conservative elected officials. Cruz’s father, a frequent campaign surrogate for his son, spoke at a meeting of the group shortly after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, at a time when the group’s leadership was defending the pro-Trump mob on social media.
A spokeswoman did not respond to a request for an interview with the senator or to specific questions about TTP. “The Senator is not aware of every tweet, post, or comment of activists in the state of Texas,” the spokeswoman, Erin Perrine, said in a statement.
“If you want to know what he thinks on any issue — feel free to look at his decades-long record. Sen. Cruz is unequivocal in his denunciation of any form of racism, hatred, or bigotry.”
In 2019, Cruz condemned the El Paso shooting as “a heinous act of terrorism and white supremacy.” The gunman’s manifesto had railed against a “Hispanic invasion of Texas,” and many of those killed or wounded were Hispanic.
Cruz’s ongoing ties to TTP contrast with the group’s fraught relationship with much of the Republican establishment in Texas.
There is a lot more to this report and you can read the full story here.
It will be two years since the mass shooting in El Paso in August.
Lawmakers urge Biden to back ‘moral’ patent waiver to speed vaccine access.
Reuters reports:
US lawmakers and nonprofit groups today heaped pressure on the Biden administration to back a temporary patent waiver for Covid-19 vaccines to help poor countries contain the pandemic.
The groups delivered a petition signed by two million people, adding to separate letters already sent to the US president, Joe Biden, by a group of senators, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, nearly 100 members of the House and 60 former heads of state and 100 Nobel Prize winners.
Senator Bernie Sanders said it was also in the United States’ own interest to ensure as many people were vaccinated as quickly as possible, to limit the chance of virus mutations that could prompt further U.S. lockdowns.
But he also appealed to Biden’s desire to rebuild U.S. credibility in the world.
“On this enormously important health issue, this moral issue, the United States has got to do the right thing,” he told a news conference.
The United States and a handful of other big countries have blocked negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) involving a proposal spearheaded by India and South Africa that now has the support of 100 WTO members.
The proposal would temporarily waive the intellectual property (IP) rights of pharmaceutical companies to allow developing countries to produce vaccines.
Proponents are pushing Washington to change course ahead of the next formal WTO meeting on the issue on May 5.One source briefed on the issue told Reuters U.S. trade officials realized “that something needs to be done, whether it’s the TRIPS waiver or some other solution,” a reference to the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property agreement.
Decision awaited on Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine
Vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are considering four choices for changing the agency’s recommendation on Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine, including label changes or a complete end to its use.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is holding an emergency meeting and is expected to vote later today on recommendations, CNN reports.
The cable news channel continues, on its website:
At issue: The vaccine has been linked to 15 cases of a rare blood clotting condition called thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or TTS, all among women. Three have died.
It’s a tricky question because all but two cases have been in women under the age of 50, and no cases have been reported among men since the vaccine has been in general use, although the CDC says it’s unlikely the risk is zero among men.
CDC staff laid out several possible scenarios, all of which show that while resuming vaccination would result in more cases of blood clots, adding the J&J shot to the mix of available vaccines would save lives and keep people out of the hospital.
The committee’s four possible choices are:
- Recommend against use for all persons
- Reaffirm recommendation for all age and sex – US Food and Drug Administration to include warning statement with emergency use authorization
- Recommend vaccination only for adults aged 50 or older
- Reaffirm recommendations for use; women aged under 50 should be aware of the increased risk of TTS, and may choose another Covid-19 vaccine (ie mRNA vaccines)
Earlier, Johnson & Johnson officials said they had agreed with the FDA on new wording to add to the label saying the risk of blood clots is plausible and warning of the risks.
New York man in court over threats to kill members of Congress
A US Capitol Police officer testified Friday against a New York man accused of threatening to kill members of Congress.
He recounted how police struggled to quell the “surreal” January 6 insurrection in Washington, DC.
The Associated Press further reports that:
The defendant in the case, Brendan Hunt, was not part of the siege on January 6. But prosecutors in federal court in Brooklyn sought to use the testimony of Special Agent Christopher Desrosiers to frame the episode as a further catalyst for Hunt’s alleged call to massacre members of Congress.
Desrosiers, believed to be the first member of the Capitol force to testify at a criminal trial related to the insurrection, described for the jury how he was assigned to track the mob violence from nearby command center and was shocked to hear radio chatter of his colleagues “yelling for help.”
Asked what he was thinking at time, he said: “For myself, ‘surreal’ comes to mind.”
He testified that his team scrambled to figure out how to evacuate Vice President Mike Pence and lawmakers. But the evacuation was called off when “a sea of backup came and we were able to re-secure the building,” he said.
Hunt, 37, an analyst for the New York court system, has pleaded not guilty to charges alleging, in part, that he called for the killings of lawmakers, including House Speaker and California Democrat Nancy Pelosi, New York Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York Democratic Senator and majority leader Chuck= Schumer.
Prosecutors say it was part of a monthlong online campaign to urge violence against members of Congress that culminated on January 8 in an 88-second video titled: “Kill your senators. Slaughter them all.”
Prosecutors allege Hunt was trying to inspire violence against members of Congress on Inauguration Day (Jan 21) as a follow up to the Jan. 6 attack.
Defense attorneys have called the charges overblown and argued that there’s no proof that Hunt was a legitimate threat.
One of his lawyers, Jan Rostal, told jurors they could label her client “an idiot or clown,” but the First Amendment blocked his conviction on a criminal charge which could carry a decade in prison.
The US Justice Department has charged a Capitol rioter who was turned in by someone he matched with on the dating app Bumble, after he bragged about his exploits on January 6.
According to court documents, one week after the attack, Robert Chapman of New York told one of his Bumble matches that “I did storm the Capitol” and said that he “made it all the way into Statuary Hall.” He also claimed that he was interviewed by members of the media. CNN reports that the other Bumble user replied, “we are not a match.”
Prosecutors said the user then quickly reached out to the FBI and provided screenshots of the conversation.
Investigators said in court filings that they corroborated Chapman’s claims by comparing his Bumble profile picture to body camera footage from police officers who were inside the Capitol.
Chapman was charged with four misdemeanors, including disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. He hasn’t entered a plea and his lawyer didn’t respond to a request for comment on the charges.
According to screenshots in court filings, Chapman also posted to Facebook before the January 6 insurrection that he was traveling to the “District of Criminality,” referring to Washington, DC. And on the day of the attack, he allegedly posted, “I’M F---IN INSIDE THE CRAPITOL.”
Incriminating social media postslike these have become a hallmark of the Capitol riot investigation. In dozens of cases, prosecutors quoted rioters’ posts from Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Parler, Snapchat, and other sites where they bragged about their alleged crimes.More than 390 people have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the attack.
According to court records, Chapman was arrested on Thursday and released by a federal magistrate judge in the Southern District of New York. Most Capitol riot defendants who aren’t charged with violent crimes -- including Chapman -- have been released from jail before trial.
Joe Biden has closed out a two-day climate summit of more than 40 world leaders by warning that the planet risks reaching the “point of no return” if more isn’t done to escalate efforts to constrain the climate crisis.
Here’s a sneak preview and truncated version of Oliver Milman’s latest explainer, which will be live, in full, on the website before long.
Biden, along with several other national leaders, made a number of new promises in the summit. Here’s what it all means.
What has Joe Biden promised at the summit?
As its centerpiece announcement, the Biden administration has said planet-heating emissions will be cut by 50%-52% by 2030. The target was officially submitted to the United Nations as part of an overarching global system where countries submit voluntary emissions reduction goals in order to collectively avoid dangerous global heating.
On top of this, the summit saw an American promise to double financial aid for developing countries struggling with the escalating droughts, floods, heatwaves and other impacts of the climate crisis...The White House hopes the new commitments will spur other countries to do more.
Is that enough to deal with the threat of climate change?
No. But then very little at this stage is sufficient. Despite decades of warnings from scientists, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to soar, only dipping last year due to pandemic-related shutdowns. The cuts required to stave off truly disastrous global heating are now precipitously steep – reduce by around half this decade and then to zero by 2050.
Some activists feel the US could be doing more, with a group of protesters dumping wheelbarrows of manure outside the White House on Thursday. The climate aid pledge has also been criticized as “very low” by ActionAid USA.
Conversely, the US goal is one of the most ambitious for a developed country. “Is it enough? No,” said John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy. “But it’s the best we can do today and prove we can begin to move.”
How will big reductions in emissions change Americans’ lives?
Emissions have been gradually declining in the US for several years, largely due to the collapse of the ailing coal industry. Cutting emissions in half within a decade will require far more aggressive, and noticeable, changes – an explosion in solar and wind jobs, a rapid shift to electric cars, the refitting of energy inefficient buildings, the demise of coal country, a revamp of farming practices.
Biden has framed this unprecedented transition as a glorious economic opportunity – “when I think of climate change, I think of jobs” has become a presidential slogan.
How likely is it Biden will be able to deliver this?
There are record levels of alarm among the American public over the climate crisis, with majorities of both Democratic and Republican voters supporting action to bring down emissions. Big business, unions and city leaders have also swung strongly behind the push for a federal response.
Imposing barriers remain in Congress, however, where Republicans have clung onto Trump-era rhetoric that acting on the climate crisis will harm the economy...At some point Biden will have to bring in ‘sticks’ as well as ‘carrots’, such as a tax on carbon emissions and a directive to utilities to phase out fossil fuels. Again, such measures face huge hurdles in Congress.
US climate commitments turns spotlight on China and Russia
It has been notable this week that Russia spoke of commitments to tackling the climate crisis yet declined to put a number on it.
Now our environment correspondent in London, Fiona Harvey, brings a wrap of the two day global leaders’ virtual summit, turning to China, writing thus:
The US, the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, is now committed to halving emissions this decade.
Joe Biden’s announcement, at a White House virtual climate summit, has thrown the spotlight clearly on the world’s biggest emitter: China.
China is responsible for roughly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, and is likely to increase its carbon output this year. Without strong action from China, the world will be unable to hold back climate breakdown.
The country has a long-term target of reaching net zero emissions by 2060 but has yet to produce a national plan for its emissions this decade, as required under the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
At the White House climate summit, China was not expected to announce any major new initiative – the country would prefer not to be seen as acting in response to the US, with whom relations have recently been strained.
But Xi Jinping, the president of China, made a cordial and well-received speech in which he promised further action on clean energy and said China would cause its consumption of coal to peak around the middle of this decade.
He said: “China will strictly control coal-fired power generation projects, and strictly limit the increase in coal consumption over the 14th five-year plan period [2021-25], and phase it down in the 15th five-year plan period [2026-30].”
Xi’s commitment was positive but did not mark a breakthrough, climate experts said, as it would still allow for the construction of hundreds of coal-fired power stations planned for the next five years.
You can read the rest of the report here.
The piece also notes that there could be no way to avoid climate catastrophe without weaning the world, and China in particular, off coal.
Updated
Today so far
A brief summary of where things stand so far in US politics news today. Later on, we expect the federal agency the CDC’s advisory panel to release their decision on whether the US should resume administering the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.
Meanwhile:
- Joe Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson will meet in June when the US president takes his first overseas trip since winning the White House and visits Britain for the G7 summit. They’ll seek to boost the US-UK “special relationship” despite the fact that Britain is a lot less useful to America since it exited the European Union.
- It’s Joe Biden’s 100th day in office next Thursday. He will travel to the the southern state of Georgia, which newly turned blue in November when voters supported him for the White House and picked two Democrats as their US Senators. The evening before he will make his maiden address as president to a joint session of Congress.
- Clean, affordable, reliable electricity system worldwide is this generation’s “moonshot”, energy secretary Jennifer Granholm told the closing day of the global climate summit held virtually and hosted by the White House.
- Caitlyn Jenner is running for governor of California, hoping to replace Democrat Gavin Newsom.
- Joe Biden opened the second and last day of the climate summit by saying the US was “looking forward” to working with Russia to remove carbon dioxide from the world’s atmosphere (as well as cut greenhouse gas emissions).
It’s worth noting the context in which Joe Biden referred to British prime minister Boris Johnson as “a clone” of Donald Trump.
The remark came in mid-December 2019 (remember when we had no idea a coronavirus was about to unleash a pandemic upon the world?), after Johnson’s gut-wrenching (for liberals and EU-remainers) landslide general election victory.
Our David Smith wrote at the time:
The UK Labour Party’s crushing defeat in the British general election ignited instant debate among Democrats in the US, with 2020 election frontrunner Joe Biden framing it as a warning to the party against moving too far left.
While the Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson, is often compared to Donald Trump, some also see parallels between the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, a 70-year-old socialist, and leftwing senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, aged 78 and 70 respectively.
Speaking at a campaign fundraiser in San Francisco, Biden, the former vice-president, said: “Look what happens when the Labour party moves so, so far to the left. It comes up with ideas that are not able to be contained within a rational basis quickly.
“You’re also going to see people saying, my God, Boris Johnson, who is kind of a physical and emotional clone of the president, is able to win.”
Others cautioned against over-extrapolation, noting the deep policy and structural differences between US and British politics.
Corbyn was wrestling with Brexit’s defining role at the ballot and lingering allegations of antisemitism that helped lead to his party’s massive defeat.
Many US commentators pointed out that even Johnson is to the left of most American politicians on issues such as healthcare and the climate crisis.
Here’s that piece from Smith in full.
Joe Biden’s first overseas trip as president will be to Britain and then Belgium this June in what the White House is calling “a commitment to restoring our alliances” and “revitalizing the transatlantic relationship”, without adding “after the disruptive presidency of Donald Trump”.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not confirm earlier today whether Biden will meet with Queen Elizabeth II, but the UK’s Sunday Times said (note: paywalled article) in January that that was the plan, when it pointed out that”
The Queen will lead a post-Brexit charm offensive by hosting Joe Biden and other world leaders at Buckingham Palace before the G7 summit in Cornwall in June.
She will be joined at the “soft power” reception in June by the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge under plans being drawn up by royal and government officials to cement the “special relationship” between the UK and America.....the Queen has met every US president since the start of her reign in 1952 [not a typo], except Lyndon Johnson.
Psaki gamely said earlier that Biden’s expected bilateral meeting with UK prime minister Boris Johnson “sends a message about the special relationship” between the US and the UK.
Biden will attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit near the beautiful St Ives in the county of Cornwall June 11 to 13.
Then he’ll head to Brussels for the next NATO summit on June 14, and a US-European Union summit.
But don’t get too excited about the US-UK special relationship, say some.
#PresidentJoeBiden is coming to #Cornwall for #G7 and will be holding bi-laterals, including with #BorisJohnson. Then to #Belgium to talk to #NATO /#EU.
— Bonnie Greer (@Bonn1eGreer) April 23, 2021
So far- he only meets PM once. Anyone implying any big deal about this is vis a vis UK is spinning.pic.twitter.com/N1NPBoSTqn
It will be an important moment to assess how important the UK is to the US post-Brexit, compared with the vast EU.
Here’s Johnson on the trail earlier today to boost Conservative chances in a local election. Photograph: Reuters
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Deb Haaland noted at a White House press conference earlier, in what is National Park Week, that “I always wanted to be a National Park ranger.”
Haaland had to make do with becoming interior secretary instead, a key post in the cabinet, with enormous power over the destiny of public lands in the US.
She is the first Native American cabinet secretary in US history.
Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo, one of 574 sovereign tribal nations located across 35 states. According to the 2010 census, 5.2 million people or about 2% of the US population identifies as American Indian or Alaskan Native – descendants of those who survived US government policies to kill, remove or assimilate indigenous peoples, as our colleague Nina Lakhani put it in an interview with Haaland around the time she was nominated by Joe Biden after his victory in last November’s presidential election.
Haaland said at today’s briefing that she will actually be swearing in some National Park junior rangers in a little bit.
Meanwhile, on some of the most important issues, Haaland said she planned to do everything she can at interior to work towards the goal of a “clean energy revolution” to tackle the climate crisis.
And she is forging ahead with a commission to identify and curtail violent crimes targeting Indigenous women.
Deb Haaland Is Plowing Ahead With Tackling Violence Against Native Women | Via Huffpost https://t.co/5Yuhg7GXu2
— SafetyPin-Daily (@SafetyPinDaily) April 23, 2021
Biden-Johnson to promote US-UK 'special relationship' during meeting in June
When Joe Biden visits the UK in June in the first overseas trip of his presidency, he will not only attend the G7 meeting in Cornwall, the county in the south-west of England, but he will have a bilateral encounter with British prime minister Boris Johnson.
Our David Smith, attending the briefing with White House press sec Jen Psaki, asked how that’s likely to go, given that Biden has previously described Johnson as “a physical and emotional clone of Donald Trump” and inquired whether Biden “still holds that view?”
Psaki wasn’t going to chomp on that bait, of course, so she mentioned the two men revving up to talk about - wait for it - “a range of issues”.
And as “fellow global leaders” their planned meeting “sends a message about the special relationship” that historically exists between the US and the UK.
Our Smith then asked if Biden will get to meet Queen Elizabeth II, who just turned 95, when he visits. That’s still up in the air, at least officially.
Psaki said: “Who would not want to meet the Queen?” She promised more details about the trip near the time.
Asked if Biden will meet the Queen in the UK, Psaki replies: "Who wouldn't want to meet the Queen?"
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 23, 2021
Psaki was also asked about whether “the former guy”, as Biden refers to Trump, whom he succeeded as the 46th President of the United States, deserved credit for bashing non-US members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) to increase their payments into the alliance, which they had been paying short.
“I know he [Trump] thought he invented that [move] but having worked in the Obama administration” Psaki such efforts have consistently been US policy.
Here the response to Smith’s Q.
“I know he thought he invented that, but” — some Trump shade from Jen Psaki pic.twitter.com/OhVKYO2WCW
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 23, 2021
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Biden to address Congress next Wednesday and travel to Georgia on Thursday, his 100th day in office
White House press secretary is updating the media on the forthcoming 100th day in office for Joe Biden and vice president Kamala Harris.
Biden has been invited to give his maiden speech as president to a joint session of the US Congress, next Wednesday.
Although a new US president doesn’t give a State of the Union address in their first year in office, Biden’s speech to Congress is designed to set out his agenda in similar fashion.
Psaki: On Wednesday the president will address a joint session of Congress. "He will lay out the American Families Plan... On Thursday, the president's 100th day in office, he and the first lady will travel to Georgia."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 23, 2021
The Washington Post noted earlier this week that “White House officials are closing in on a large spending plan centered on child care, paid family leave and other domestic priorities, according to two people aware of internal discussions. The package could amount to at least $1 trillion of new spending and tax credits, though details remain fluid.
The American Families Plan, the second part of the administration’s Build Back Better agenda, is expected to be unveiled ahead of President Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress on April 28, the people said. It follows the approximately $2 trillion jobs and infrastructure plan that the White House introduced this month and that is just beginning to be debated by Congress.
While details remained in flux, the White House’s newest plan is expected to call for roughly $1 trillion in new spending and approximately $500 billion in new tax credits, according to the people aware of the internal discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. Aides cautioned that the final details of the plan remained unsettled and were subject to change.”
Psaki just said it’s not confirmed yet whether Jill Biden will attend the address by her husband at the Capitol on Wednesday - most people will be watching remotely because of restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Then on Thursday, the Bidens head south to Georgia.
Psaki: On Wednesday the president will address a joint session of Congress. "He will lay out the American Families Plan... On Thursday, the president's 100th day in office, he and the first lady will travel to Georgia."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 23, 2021
White House press secretary Jen Psaki is running through some of the main themes of the day in a media briefing.
Psaki said the US-led climate summit that just wrapped shows that America is back at the table. Our colleague David Smith is at the briefing.
Press secretary Jen Psaki: President Biden just concluded a historic climate summit with world leaders “to show America is back at the table”. pic.twitter.com/66JMhTvBLi
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 23, 2021
Biden is going to make his first overseas trip of his presidency, traveling to Britain and Belgium in June. Psaki can’t say if this is a green light for international travel for Americans, as the coronavirus pandemic continues.
Psaki: The president will travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June.
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) April 23, 2021
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US appeals court denies Dakota Access pipeline rehearing request; environmental review to continue.
The two-day virtual global climate summit led by the White House has wrapped up. But in more environmental news this morning, a federal court in Washington, DC, has made a decision that will cheer those hoping to get rid of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
As a reminder, the oil pipeline begins in the shale oil fields of the of the Bakken rock formation in northwest North Dakota and continues through South Dakota and Iowa to an oil terminal in Illinois. Together with the Energy Transfer Crude Oil Pipeline from Patoka to Texas, it forms the Bakken system.
Reuters reports:
A U.S. appeals court on Friday denied Dakota Access LLC’s petition for a rehearing on a court decision to cancel a key permit for its oil pipeline, court documents show.
The decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia means the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) technically is still trespassing on federal land because it does not have a permit to cross under South Dakota’s Lake Oahe. The environmental review of the line is continuing, and is not expected to be completed until March 2022.
The 570,000 barrel-per-day DAPL began operating in mid-2017 but drew controversy during construction as Native American tribes and activists protested its route under Oahe, a critical drinking water source for the tribes.
DAPL is the largest pipeline out of the Bakken region, which produces about 1 million barrels of crude per day in North Dakota and eastern Montana.
If the pipeline were forced to close, the state of North Dakota estimates production could fall by 400,000 bpd temporarily.
Last summer, a U.S. district court judge threw out a federal permit for the line to operate under the lake and ordered an environmental review for that section of the pipeline.
A three-judge panel at the circuit court in January upheld the lower court’s decision to vacate the permit and require the review.
The pipeline’s operators wanted the circuit court to reconsider the panel’s decision.“This marks the complete end of the appeals court proceedings on this case,” said attorney Jeffrey Rasmussen, of Patterson Earnhart Real Bird & Wilson LLP, which represents the Yankton Sioux Tribe in the case.
It is possible, however, that Dakota Access could petition the U.S. Supreme Court to keep the line running.A spokeswoman for Energy Transfer LP, DAPL’s majority owner, declined to comment on current or pending legal matters.
As our Guardian US colleague Nina Lakani also noted in January: Indigenous leaders and environmentalists are urging Joe Biden to shutdown some of America’s most controversial fossil fuel pipelines, after welcoming his executive order cancelling the Keystone XL (KXL) project.
Activists praised the president’s decision to stop construction of the transnational KXL oil pipeline on his first day in the White House, but they stressed that he must cancel similar polluting fossil fuel projects, including the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), to stand any chance of meeting his bold climate action goals.
Cornish pasty and clotted cream makers ahoy! Biden heading for Cornwall on first foreign trip as US president.
Joe Biden will travel to the United Kingdom and Belgium in June for his first overseas trip since taking office, the White House said a little earlier.
Reuters reports that:
The trip aims to highlight the US president’s “commitment to restoring our alliances, revitalizing the transatlantic relationship, and working in close cooperation with our allies,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.
The announcement was made as Biden concluded hosting a global climate summit that marked a renewed US engagement in climate efforts.
Biden will attend the G7 Summit in Cornwall, UK, from June 11-13, where he will hold bilateral meetings with G7 leaders including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the White House said.
From there, Biden will travel to Brussels for the NATO Summit on June 14. “President Biden will affirm the United States* commitment to NATO, transatlantic security, and collective defense,” Psaki said.
Clean, affordable, reliable electricity system worldwide is 'moonshot'
Jennifer Granholm, US energy secretary, said at the virtual climate summit this morning that clean technology was “our generation’s moonshot”.
The Biden administration’s energy secretary and Michigan’s former governor, Granholm said her department would be announcing new goals for “leaps in next generation technologies”, such as carbon capture, energy storage and industrial fuels.
Reuters reports:
Underscoring the role for carbon removal technologies to meet global climate goals, Granholm announced a partnership with Canada, Norway, Qatar and Saudi Arabia called the Net Zero Producers Forum.
It aimed to develop “long-term strategies to reach global net-zero emissions”, she said.
Granholm also announced a partnership with Denmark to partner on zeroing out emissions in the global shipping industry.
The White House has sought to assure other countries that it can meet the new U.S. emissions target, even if a new administration takes over, because industry is moving toward cleaner power, electric vehicles, and more renewable energy anyway.
“No politician, no matter how demagogic or how potent and capable they are, is going to be able to change what that market is doing,” said John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy.
Biden has sought to connect efforts to fight climate change with opportunities to create jobs, arguing that taking action will be good for the economy in order to counter Republican concerns that climate regulation could slow growth.
His $2.3 trillion infrastructure package is integral to achieving the new U.S. emissions target, but requires approval by Congress, where Democrats hold only razor-thin majorities.
US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
— nixon apple (@nixon_apple) April 23, 2021
“This is our generation’s moonshot. Less than a decade after Kennedy declared our nation’s choice to go to the moon we planted an American flag on that cratered surface, and today we choose to solve the climate crisis,”
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John Kerry’s climate warning: ‘Even If We Get To Net Zero, We Need Carbon Removal’
That’s the interesting headline on the HuffPost site from yesterday, just to expand a little more on this vague but, at the simplest level, at least not discouraging US-Russia talk on cooperation over removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to help reverse global heating.
HuffPo’s Alexander Kauffman’s piece notes that Kerry’s “little-noticed remark came during a finance session of Biden’s big Earth Day climate summit” yesterday.
He writes:
John Kerry, the Biden administration’s special climate envoy, warned Thursday that mounting global commitments to reach net-zero emissions by the middle of this century will not be enough to avert catastrophic warming.
To preserve a safe and recognizable global climate, the world will need to start removing the carbon dioxide we’ve spewed into the atmosphere over the last 200 years, which has created an insulating layer around our planet, the former secretary of state said during the first day of the White House’s two-day climate summit.
“Even if we get to net zero, we still need to get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,” Kerry said. “This is a bigger challenge than a lot of people have really grabbed on to yet.”
It was an unusually candid remark on a politically sensitive subject, made ― strangely enough ― at the tail end of a conversation about climate financing with Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser.
Getting rich countries to reduce consumption of oil, gas and coal has proven difficult enough, despite mounting billion-dollar climate disasters and the proliferation of cheap, zero-carbon energy and transportation alternatives. That has made many climate activists see discussions of carbon removal as threatening efforts to cut emissions.
There is also no clear pathway to carbon removal; it’s less straightforward than replacing coal plants with wind power or gas-fueled automobiles with electric vehicles and public transit.
A blip of something unusual amid today's choreographed climate pageantry: John Kerry acknowledging the need for carbon removal.
— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) April 22, 2021
“Even if we get to net zero, we still need to get carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere."
Experts say this is a new tack. https://t.co/4VGCVjGI4M
At the virtual summit HQ in Washington, where Biden has been sitting alongside his energy sec Jennifer Granholm, Kerry and others, it’s hard to miss the green centerpiece situation. My environment correspondent colleague, Oliver Milman, couldn’t help but remark.
the grass centerpiece to the climate summit is rather lush pic.twitter.com/y1b4MrgmBV
— Oliver Milman (@olliemilman) April 23, 2021
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Just a reminder of what the Russian president Vladimir Putin said at the climate summit convened by Joe Biden, which began yesterday and winds up today.
Putin called for international cooperation to tackle climate change but did not cite a target for Russia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
In his speech yesterday, Putin urged “broad and effective international cooperation in the calculation and monitoring of volumes of all types of harmful emissions into the atmosphere.”
The news wires report:
Putin said: Russia is genuinely interested in galvanizing international cooperation so as to look further for effective solutions to climate change as well as to all other vital challenges.”
Putin says Moscow is ready to offer a number of joint projects and consider preferences for foreign companies willing to invest in clean technologies, including those in Russia.
The Russian leader says he has tasked the government to “significantly cut the accumulated volume of net emissions” by 2050 in Russia, while refraining from naming a concrete goal.
Earlier today, Joe Biden said he was heartened by Putin’s call for collaborative efforts on removal of carbon dioxide from the planet’s atmosphere, in order to combat climate change, and looked forward to working with Russia.
Biden said great progress had already been made, but more efforts were needed by governments and the private sector to ensure a smooth transition to a clean energy future.
“When we invest in climate resilience and infrastructure, we create opportunities for everyone,” Biden said.
Here’s how American University in Washington, DC, explains carbon removal:
Carbon removal is the process of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and locking it away for decades, centuries, or millennia. This could slow, limit, or even reverse climate change — but it is not a substitute for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
This is because carbon removal is generally slow-acting and may not be able to be deployed at scales commensurate with society’s current greenhouse emissions. Carbon removal is sometimes referred to as carbon dioxide removal or CDR, and technologies for implementing carbon removal are sometimes called Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs). Some prominent ideas for carbon removal include:
- planting massive new forests (afforestation/reforestation)
- using no-till agriculture and other practices to increase the amount of carbon stored in soils (soil carbon sequestration)
- creating charcoal and burying it or plowing it into fields (biochar)
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She wants your money. Here’s the tweet. Caitlyn Jenner urges California voters to join her campaign because “California is worth fighting for”.
I’m in! California is worth fighting for. Visit https://t.co/a1SfOAMZQ3 to follow or donate today. #RecallNewsom pic.twitter.com/9yCck3KK4D
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) April 23, 2021
'Caitlyn for California' – Jenner to run for governor
Interrupting leaders’ speeches on their efforts to save the planet to bring you breaking news out of the west coast. It’s official – Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympic decathlete, reality TV star and transgender activist, has filed her initial paperwork to run for governor of California.
In a scoopette, the Axios website brings us the news that:
Jenner, a longtime Republican, is seeking to replace Democratic governor Gavin Newsom in a recall election, hoping her celebrity status and name recognition can yield an upset in the nation’s most populous state.
But in deep-blue California, she’s decidedly not branding herself as a Trump Republican even as she’s counting on some of the former president’s advisers to drive her strategy.
She’s assembled a team of prominent GOP operatives including Tony Fabrizio, the top pollster on Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, Ryan Erwin, founder of RedRock Strategies, and Tyler Deaton, president of Allegiance Strategies.
Of course you don’t launch a campaign until you have some merch, especially if you are Jenner, who’s connected to the wider Kardashian universe.
Jenner’s website announcing her run for governor – “I’m in !” – (there is officially a space between in and !) already has a whole section where you can buy mugs, T-shirts, caps, bumper stickers and glassware with a symbol of a shooting star over her simple slogan: “Caitlyn for California”.
Boom. Newsom’s had a patchy track record tackling the coronavirus pandemic in California. More background soon.
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US "looks forward" to working with Russia on carbon removal efforts - Biden
In a short addess, the point that jumped out was this from US president Joe Biden.
“I’m very heartened by President Putin’s call yesterday for the world to collaborate and advance carbon dioxide removal, and the United States look forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise.”
Biden: “I’m very heartened by President Putin's call yesterday for the world to collaborate and advance carbon dioxide removal, and the United States look forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise.”
— Kate Sullivan (@KateSullivanDC) April 23, 2021
HuffPost though Potus was “rocking a great suit”.
Certainly makes a change from Donald Trump’s repurposed shiny curtains.
Biden, rocking a great suit, just said:
— Alexander Kaufman (@AlexCKaufman) April 23, 2021
"I'm very heartened by President Putin’s call yesterday for the world to collaborate on advanced carbon dioxide removal. The United States looks forward to working with Russia and other countries in that endeavor. It has great promise." pic.twitter.com/hEcCxernFX
Updated
Here’s the president.
Joe Biden says that the second and final day of the virtual global leaders climate summit is “not about the threat” of the climate emergency “it’s about the opportunity that addressing climate change provides”
The US president said that the commitments made so far, such as the US yesterday pledging to halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, was “the start of a road that takes us to Glasgow [COP26], in November, where we will make these commitments real.”
In November, the Scottish city hosts the COP26 United Nations climate change conference.
Biden said today the summit will hear from leaders of Spain, Nigeria, Vietnam and Poland, as well as business leaders, such as Mike Bloomberg and Bill Gates, and the Biden administration’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttiegieg.
As commerce secretary Gina Raimondo provides the warm-up act to the president at the virtual world climate summit, an independent research organization says the American goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 52% from 2005 levels puts the United States among the four most ambitious nations in curbing climate change, the Associated Press reports this morning.
The AP brings us this news:
The Rhodium Group said that using the US-preferred 2005 baseline, America is behind the United Kingdom but right with the European Union. It’s ahead of countries that include Canada, Japan, Iceland and Norway.
Joe Biden announced the US goal at the virtual climate summit on Thursday.
Different nations use different base years for their emission cuts so comparisons are difficult and can look different based on baseline years.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions 45% below 2010 levels to limit warming to the strictest of the Paris agreement goals. Rhodium calculates the US target translates to 49% below 2010 levels.
John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, is speaking now, talking about the problem of a lack of governmental willpower around the world holding back progress in tackling the climate crisis.
Joe Biden will take the podium in the east room at the White House very shortly.
The title of his address is: “The Economic Opportunities of Climate Action.”
My environment correspondent colleague Oliver Milman previews the main thrust today about job creation:
The White House is bringing out the billionaires, the CEOs and the union executives Friday to help sell Joe Biden’s climate-friendly transformation of the US economy at his virtual summit of world leaders.
The closing day of the two-day summit on the climate crisis is to feature Bill Gates and Mike Bloomberg, steelworker and electrical union leaders and executives for solar and other renewable energy.
Biden vows to slash US emissions by half to meet ‘existential crisis of our time’.
It’s all in service of an argument US officials say will make or break the president’s climate agenda: pouring trillions of dollars into clean-energy technology, research and infrastructure will jet-pack a competitive US economy into the future and create jobs, while saving the planet.
The new urgency comes as scientists say that the climate crisis caused by coal plants, car engines and other fossil fuel use is worsening droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters and that humans are running out of time to stave off catastrophic extremes of global warming.
The event has featured the world’s major powers – and major polluters – pledging to cooperate on cutting petroleum and coal emissions that are rapidly warming the planet.
Yesterday, Biden called upon the world to confront the climate crisis and “overcome the existential crisis of our time”, as he unveiled an ambitious new pledge to slash US planet-heating emissions in half by the end of the decade.
Addressing the opening of a gathering of more than 40 world leaders in an Earth Day climate summit, Biden warned that “time is short” to address dangerous global heating and urged other countries to do more.
Shortly before the start of the summit, the White House said the US will aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by between 50% and 52% by 2030, based on 2005 levels. Biden said the new US goal will set it on the path to net zero emissions by 2050 and that other countries now needed to also raise their ambition.
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Biden to address climate summit on averting global catastrophe and creating green jobs
Good morning, US politics liveblog readers, there’s a lot going on in Washington today and we’ll bring you all the developments here, so please strap in and hold tight for a lively Friday.
- Joe Biden is due to kick off the second day of the virtual world leaders summit on the climate emergency, giving a speech at the White House at 9.15ET/1.15pm GMT. We plan to have a live stream of that here.
- Today is all about Biden banging his favorite drum - how to tackle the climate crisis by creating jobs at the same time.
- The US House and Senate are not in session today, but the White House is making up for that with a busy day. Vice-President Kamala Harris is going to New Hampshire to talk about jobs, jobs, jobs - and infrastructure, including better internet services.
- The White House coronavirus team of experts will be addressing the nation mid-morning, about the same time that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisory panel is expected to decide whether to continue the pause on administering the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine.
- Press sec Jen Psaki will take an array of questions from the media at the White House briefing room at 11.30ET.
