U.S. climate promises hang in the balance as Manchin upends talks

As President Biden’s climate ambitions appeared to collapse in Congress on Friday, advocates around the world expressed alarm about how an absence of U.S. leadership could undermine the push to avoid catastrophic warming of Earth’s atmosphere.

...Mohamed Adow woke up in Nairobi to the news that Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) remains unwilling to support new climate spending, a stance that would all but torpedo Biden’s push to rapidly cut the nation’s greenhouse gas pollution.

The frustration and disappointment Adow felt at the congressional gridlock had little to do with the president, and everything to do with the implications for the planet if the world’s second-largest emitter does not change course.

“People say this is a blow for Biden’s climate plan,” Adow, head of Power Shift Africa, a think tank that lobbies for clean energy, said in a text message. “But it’s actually a blow for the whole world, for people on the front line of the climate crisis, and it’s a blow for the American people who will not escape the impacts of extreme heat, floods, sea level rise and storms.”