Biden faces international climate-aid challenge in ’24

WASHINGTON — Even with Democrats narrowly controlling both houses of Congress, President Joe Biden was unable to convince lawmakers to fully fund his requests for contributions in fiscal 2022 or 2023 to international funds that help poor nations address climate change.

Biden pledged to the United Nations in 2021 that the U.S. would give $11.4 billion annually to such funds starting in fiscal 2024. Republicans, who have opposed most climate change-related spending, will have a majority in the House next year, so Biden will face a tough fight to meet that pledge.

Biden on Dec. 23 signed the fiscal 2023 omnibus spending legislation, which included $1.06 billion for climate finance programs, a far cry from the $5.3 billion the administration wanted.

“Looking at the numbers, it very much looks like a repeat of last year,” Joe Thwaites, who tracks international climate finance at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said by phone. “It just conforms to a pattern of the U.S. making commitments on climate finance and failing to deliver.”

For the previous budget year, Congress provided about the same amount of money for climate finance.

The funding letdown for the administration comes a month after negotiators reached a breakthrough deal at U.N. climate talks in Egypt to create a new fund to help poor and at-risk nations endure climate disasters, which are driven in large part by the wealthiest nations of the world.