Biden is dangerously politicizing climate change in Asia
Postscript Update to article on April 19, 2021 — Since this article was published on March 27, 2001, the momentum behind the concerns highlighted in this article led the Biden administration to reconsider their approach and they opened invitations to additional countries. This has been a sensible course-correction which is duly acknowledged, though opportunities for climate diplomacy with countries like Cuba and Iran are still being missed.
March 27, 2021. The White House is hosting a major international conference on climate action on April 22–23 and released a list of 40 invited countries. First, it is an arbitrary decision to choose only these countries when climate change should be a big tent issue. It should include all countries so as to foster a sense of global camaraderie. The inclusions and exclusions on this list are also bizarre. It is not a list of particular allies since countries such as Russia and China are on it. Even Saudi Arabia has been invited despite the recent U.S. report regarding direct state involvement in the murder of U.S permanent resident Jamal Khashoggi. The list also does not highlight the most significant countries in terms of particular impacts either — as there are countries like Gabon or Poland, included.
Let me be clear that all these countries should be invited but by making it an exclusive list, Biden has raised distracting political questions which do not need to be raised on a global issue like climate change. The business school mantra of having small groups for negotiations is not applicable in environmental geopolitics of climate change. There is also not much functional difference between inviting 40 and 193 countries (total UN member states) in an online or even an in-person conference. As a professional mediator and facilitator I find such excuses quite shallow — specially when the United States hosts the United Nations headquarters and has ample experience with such events. Indeed, the rationale for inviting Saudi Arabia — a major oil producer — would also suggest the need to invite Iran and Iraq. This could have, in fact, provided an opportunity for environmental peace-building which many scholars have long argued for in earlier writings and which is a widely accepted area for conflict resolution. The demographic and spatial dominance of Asia makes the continent particularly important for such approaches to be sensitively considered.
Furthermore, the exclusions make even less sense. Two key Asian countries are excluded — Pakistan and the Philippines. Both these countries are ranked by the Climate Risk Index as among the most vulnerable to climate change. They also have long historical relations with the United States on a variety of issues. The question then to ask is why were these countries excluded in particular? The answer likely hovers around the prospect that the US government wants to politicize climate change in the Asian context because of other interests which it views as “high politics.” This may also be a reflection of a growing tension between Anthony Blinken and John Kerry. In the case of the Philippines and Pakistan, perhaps it is meant to be a warning that they cannot be part of the American club if they continue overtures of cooperation with China. But this is a self-defeating belittling approach towards two countries which have collectively over 300 million people. It is particularly galling for Pakistan and Philippines to be excluded when other countries in their respective regions are included such as India, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
As someone who has supported President Biden’s election and also as a citizen of his home-state of Delaware, I am deeply disappointed by how his climate change operation is being politicized. As a climate change advisor to the Global Environment Facility and serving on the United Nations International Resource Panel, I had the opportunity to attend the last Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Climate Change Convention meeting in Madrid, just before the pandemic. At the time, the United States was playing an obstructionist role and we yearned for a more constructive American administration. We have less than a year to go before the next Glasgow COP meeting, and the signs from this first Biden climate summit’s invitation list suggest that the US will only use climate change for its own selective ends of hegemonic brinksmanship. The conference approach itself is also insufficient and needs far more definitive action. Let us hope we can correct course and not be exclusive with our global engagement on climate change — only then will we truly reap the harvest of environmental diplomacy for a more sustainable future for humanity.
Saleem H. Ali is Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and the Environment at the University of Delaware. His books include Environmental Diplomacy: Negotiating more Effective Agreements (with Lawrence Susskind, Oxford University Press)