Vice President Harris to Attend Climate Talks in Dubai

WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Dubai on Friday to attend the COP28 climate change talks.

According to the White House, the vice president’s scheduled two days at the talks “will underscore the Biden-Harris administration’s success in delivering on the most ambitious climate agenda in history, both at home and abroad.”

She’ll be joined at the meeting, formally known as the 28th Conference of the Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, by former Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., president’s Biden’s special envoy for climate change, and dozens of other senior U.S. officials representing more than 20 federal departments and agencies.

President Biden himself has attended the last two climate sessions, but the White House let it be known over the Thanksgiving weekend that he wouldn’t be personally attending this year’s meeting of nearly 200 countries.

It’s not unusual for a U.S. president not to attend the talks, and in this case, though no reason was given for his absence, it has been widely speculated that he wants to continue to focus on his efforts to reduce hostilities between Israel and Hamas and to ensure the continued release of hostages held by Hamas.

In June 2017, former President Donald Trump announced he was pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, under which nearly 200 nations have pledged to cut greenhouse emissions and to help poor countries cope with the worst effects of an already warming planet.

Biden, who has called climate change an “existential threat” against which “more action is still badly needed,” announced the United States would rejoin the Paris accords hours after he was sworn into office in January 2020.

In 2021, he traveled to Glasgow, Scotland, for the climate talks, where he made a point of apologizing for his predecessor’s decision.

“I guess I shouldn’t apologize, but I do apologize for the fact that the United States — the last administration — pulled out of the Paris accord,” Biden said at the time. 

“It put us sort of behind the eight ball a little bit,” he added.

Later in the session, he again revisited what had happened, explaining during one session that “the American people, four or five years ago, weren’t at all sure about climate change, whether it was real.”

“Well, they have, as they say in southern parts of my state, ‘seen the lord.’ They’ve seen what’s happened back home. The incredible changes that are taking place. And they’re now finally … seeing the sense of urgency that you all are,” the president said.

Last year, Biden made a three-hour stopover in Egypt for the summit, where he again reasserted American leadership in the global fight against climate change, and promoted the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act.

Considered by most analysts to be the country’s most significant climate law ever, the Inflation Reduction Act dedicated at least $370 billion into renewable energy and climate mitigation efforts over the next 10 years. 

The White House did not say whether Harris will be making any major announcement at the conference but did say her participation in the conference “will continue the Biden-Harris administration’s leadership on bold, global action to address the climate crisis, advance U.S. climate goals and help ensure a strong outcome” from the talks.

The Biden-Harris administration on Wednesday also thanked the United Arab Emirates and its president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, for the work they put into organizing the global event.

Also in Dubai this week is District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is attending the climate conference as a member of a delegation put together by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

The mayor’s office said in a press release that she would be joining leaders from across the globe “for the first-ever local action climate summit, hosted by the COP28 Presidency and Bloomberg Philanthropies.”

Bowser is scheduled to first visit Doha, Qatar, to engage with leaders on the issues of infrastructure, sports and education, as well as promote the District of Columbia as a destination for investment and tourism in partnership with the D.C. Chamber of Commerce.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue