Between floods that ravaged Pakistan and droughts that parched Europe and China, and innumerable heat waves, the global impact of climate change has become tangible lately. Yet climate hasn’t been at the top of the agenda at the United Nations General Assembly taking place this week in New York City.
World leaders have largely focused their remarks on Russia’s war in Ukraine and soaring energy prices, among other issues. U.S. President Joe Biden began his speech on Wednesday with a harsh condemnation of the Russian invasion before briefly touching on climate change. He touted his administration’s new climate law as a "global game changer,” then he moved on.
But not to the U.N. climate roundtable hosted on Wednesday afternoon by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, as an informal precursor to November’s COP27 climate talks. At least one other G7 leader, French President Emmanuel Macron, also didn’t attend the climate event.