Omnibus Bill Trims President Biden’s Overseas Climate Funding Promise

Biden

The $1.7 trillion Omnibus government funding bill which just passed Congress omitted at least one extravagance.

US fails to give money promised for developing countries to ease climate impacts

Spending bill passed by Senate includes less than $1bn in climate assistance for poorer nations even though Biden promised $11.4bn

Oliver Milman @olliemilmanSat 24 Dec 2022 04.40 AEDT

Biden has promised $11.4bn each year for developing countries to ease climate impacts and help them shift to renewable energy but the vast $1.7tn spending bill to keep the US government running, passed by the Senate on Thursday, includes less than $1bn in climate assistance for these countries.

The bill, which is expected to pass the House and be signed by the president, includes $270m for adaptation programs, largely for countries in Asia and the Pacific islands, along with $260m in clean energy investment, aimed at Africa. Another $185m will go on “sustainable landscapes programs”.

The failure to so far meet Biden’s pledge risks undermining the White House’s insistence that the US is committed to helping deal with the fallout of a climate crisis that it is a leading instigator of, through its huge historical and ongoing greenhouse gas emissions. Developing countries will need anything from $340bn to $2tn a year by 2030, according to various studies, to cope with the cascading impacts of global heating.

Administration officials say the goal is to deliver the assistance by 2024 and that money could come from other sources than direct appropriations from Congress. But the likelihood of doing this becomes far more remote once Republicans, who have largely rejected the idea of providing further aid for climate damages, gain control of the House of Representatives in January.

It is nice to see that at least some leftists were left disappointed, by this latest borrow and spend government funding bill.