At a Climate Summit Without the U.S., Allies and Rivals Call for Action

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By Somini Sengupta, Brad Plumer and David Gelles, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: The international climate summit opened on Thursday in Belém, a Brazilian city on the edge of the imperiled Amazon rainforest, with several of America’s global allies and rivals alike making the case that slowing down global warming is today key to economic growth and energy security. It was a sharp counterpoint to President Trump, who has called climate change a “con job” ...attacked global efforts to transition away from coal, oil and gas ...has launched a full-throated...attack on global efforts to reduce the world’s reliance on fossil fuels. ...no senior American government officials are present at the meeting in Belém. ...extreme weather events, aggravated by the burning of coal, oil and gas, has heightened human suffering. In the last two weeks alone, storms and hurricanes supersized by climate change clobbered Mexico, Jamaica and Haiti. Globally, 2025 is on track to be the second- or third-hottest year on record, part of a decade that witnessed the hottest 10 years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization. The cost of extreme weather hazards to the global economy: around $1.4 trillion a year, according to BloombergNEF. ...Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, said homegrown energy — wind and nuclear power in Britain’s case — enable countries like his to become energy independent from “dictators like Putin.” ...“Investment for climate change is the growth and prosperity plan for this century,” said Finland’s President, Alexander Stubb. ...Vice premier Ding Xuexiang of China talked about China’s path of “green and low carbon development” as the means to promote economic growth and new jobs. That was a clear sales pitch to the many countries from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean assembled here. Chinese companies dominate the global production of clean energy technologies. ...the summit’s host, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva...has embraced Chinese investments in electric vehicles and wind power in Brazil.... 


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