Biden’s Climate Efforts Show Promise Despite Oil Industry’s Impact on Summit

President Joe Biden spoke proudly on Thursday about the manner in which his administration is taking big steps to protect Earth’s environment. However, this focus was disrupted by worries about a war going on between Russia and Ukraine as well as other issues that could cause disruptions in the world’s oil and gas supply.

At a virtual event, President Biden said that for the next five years, the U.S. could provide Brazil with $500 million to prevent damage to the Amazon forest. The Amazon is a really important natural area that absorbs climate pollution from oil, gas, coal and methane. If this plan goes forward, Congress will need to approve it first.

People who fight for the Earth’s climate have spoken out against countries such as the U.S. that are trying to get more oil and gas even when supply is low, saying that if they do this it won’t be possible to stop global warming from getting too high.

Joe Biden, who is a Democrat, mentioned the work that has been done for the environment. This includes investment and laws which were passed last year to help lower vehicle exhausts and other harmful emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has put effort into stopping this as well. There have also been efforts in the US and around the world to stop natural gas production from leaking dangerous amounts of methane gas.

President Biden said that he and other countries around the world are willing to do a lot of hard work to lower our global warming levels. This is what everyone was discussing during an online meeting with some leaders from other countries. We were all discussing how we can make sure we stick to the commitment we made in 2015 when talking about climate change in the Paris accord.

This time, President Biden’s climate summit was unlike the previous ones in his first two years. Only seven countries leaders were present and he spoke to them via video. Usually, past summits got a lot of attention from the White House but this one was extra quiet.

President Barack Obama came up with an idea to get some of the world’s biggest countries and most polluting industries to talk about ways to reduce pollution.

This year, however, some people are worried because of Russia invading Ukraine and other oil producing countries not wanting to increase production.

The US Energy Information Administration believes that the US will get more oil than ever before: 12.4 million barrels this year and even more (12.8 million barrels) next year. Even though climate experts have praised other efforts to save the environment, they don’t agree with President Biden’s decision to allow a big new project in Alaska – an area that wasn’t allowed to be explored for oil before – because it could mean lots of extra oil for many years.