US president lashes out at Russia and China over failure to attend COP26

President Joe Biden has said Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping’s failure to turn up to the COP26 climate summit is a “big mistake”.

Addressing reporters at the end of the second day of the climate conference in Glasgow, the president of the United States said China has “walked away” on the biggest issue of our time.

The US president also suggested that “China has lost influence” in not accepting the invitation to attend the event.

“America showed up and decided to lead,” he added.

“By showing up, I think we had a profound impact on the way, I think, the rest of the world is looking at the United States and its leadership,” he told the news conference in Glasgow.

“I think it has been a mistake, quite frankly, with respect to China, not showing up.

“They have the lost the ability to influence people around the world and here in Cop. The same way I would argue with Russia.”

The US president also criticised Russia for not committing to climate goals.

Asked why the US should set such ambitious targets when nations such as Russia and China do not, he told reporters: “Because we want to be able to breathe.”

President Biden urged world leaders to ensure it is “a decisive decade of action” when it comes to tackling global warming, stressing that it is “not just a moral imperative, it’s an economic imperative as well”.

He told reporters that he had not seen any other two day period with as much progress on the issue of climate change as COP26 so far.

The US president added that the conference represents “an opportunity” for great progress, adding that there is “a lot more to do”.

“We have to keep accelerating our progress,” he said.

“For our part, the United States is going to keep raising the ambition and delivering a goal that we are reducing US emissions by 50% from the 2005 level by 2030.”

Speaking earlier on Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson dismissed concerns that Chinese President Xi’s absence from the summit has hampered its chance of success, saying it “doesn’t mean the Chinese are not engaging”.

Mr Johnson said China has already made “a substantial commitment” in pledging to move to net zero by 2060 or before, but added that more “commitments” are needed.

“China has fantastic power to make change in the way it runs its economy, they’ve committed to no new financing of overseas coal, that’s a big change already, you’re starting to see the impact of that Chinese decision to stop financing coal overseas in the whole Asia Pacific region already,” he said.