The Diplomat
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, intervened yesterday at the inauguration of the Leaders Summit on Climate, which allowed him to coincide for the first time with the President of the United States, Joe Biden, since his arrival at the White House.
The event, promoted and inaugurated by Joe Biden and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris, is being held telematically from yesterday until today, with the participation of forty leaders from around the world, including the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
During the opening of the Summit, which aims to stage the return of the United States to the Paris Agreement – from which it pulled out with Donald Trump – Joe Biden pledged yesterday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to achieve a 50-52% cut by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. “This is the decade in which we must make decisions that will prevent the worst consequences of the climate crisis”, he said.
In the same inaugural session, the President of the Government asked that the meeting serve to raise the level of climate ambition urgently and resoundingly because not enough is being done at the global level. “Spain has made great achievements, and our commitment is unwavering, but achieving success does not depend on us alone”, said Sánchez, who was accompanied by the fourth vice-president of the Government and minister for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Teresa Ribera. In addition, the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, participated yesterday in a panel on the risks posed by climate change in terms of security.
Pedro Sánchez will speak today, along with the presidents of Nigeria, Poland and Vietnam, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation and representatives of several companies and organizations, on a panel on the economic opportunities arising from long-term green recovery and decarbonization.
Since assuming the Presidency of the United States, Joe Biden has not yet been in contact with either the King or Pedro Sánchez. With the King, the contact would be of a more formal nature, since, although both are heads of state, Philip VI does not have the powers of government that Biden has. Instead, the more specific issues of the bilateral relationship are usually addressed with the President of the Government.
However, Moncloa has so far not received any communication from the White House, despite the fact that Biden continues to increase the number of telephone conversations with leaders of other countries or multilateral organizations. Joe Biden, who is moving at a slower pace in his international contacts than his immediate predecessors due to the attention he is paying to pandemic-related issues, has met with about twenty heads of state or government since he arrived at the White House.
