President Joe Biden appeared before an overflowing United Nations convention Friday to reclaim America’s role as a leader on climate change and to stress a renewed U.S. commitment to stop the planet from catastrophic warming.
Biden came to Egypt as the president who muscled through a landmark climate law, one that provides a record $370 billion to accelerate America’s transition away from the fossil fuels that have underpinned its economy for 150 years.
At the summit, known as COP27, he spoke of how he immediately returned the United States to the 2015 Paris climate agreement upon taking office after his predecessor, President Donald Trump, had withdrawn the country. "I apologize that we ever pulled out of the agreement,” he told the gathering, which comprised diplomats, ministers and representatives of nearly 200 nations.