Last week, President Joe Biden raised calls for global unity and increased ambition in the face of impending climate disaster at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland.
"The science is clear," the President said, addressing the U.N. conference. "We only have a brief window left before us to raise our ambitions...We can keep to the goal of limiting global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius within our reach if we come together."
Said goal of 1.5 °C warming above pre-industrial levels is the target set under the 2015 Paris Climate Accord. A week ahead of the conference, the U.N. Environment Program issued a damning report saying that current commitments under the accord put the world on track for 2.7 °C of warming by century's end.
"Glasgow must be the kick-off of a decade, a decade of ambition and innovation to preserve our shared future," Biden added.
"We're standing at an inflection point in world history. We have the ability to invest in ourselves and build an equitable, clean energy future and in the process, create millions of good-paying jobs and opportunities around the world."
"[The administration will] demonstrate to the world the United States is not only back at the table, hopefully leading by the power of our example," Biden added. "I know it hasn't always been the case, and that's why my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words."
Arriving in Glasgow, the President's entire climate agenda remained an open question. Thus, however bold, Biden's speech was bereft of any of the ambition he called for from other world leaders. And, at the end of his speech, he made no new emission reduction targets beyond those already agreed to at a climate summit in April.
However, simultaneous to the President's address, the White House published a long-term plan to get the US to net-zero by mid-century.
The roadmap cited multiple pathways, but they all fell along similar lines of rapid electrification, grid upgrades, and transitioning to non-polluting power sources, said the White House.
The roadmap also cited the importance of capping methane emissions and bolstering efforts to scrub existing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
But Monday's blueprint to a clean energy future remains a hollow outline without congressional approval, and for Biden that is seemingly in short supply these days.
After weeks of intraparty wrangling, the House finally managed to bring Biden's signature Build Back Better initiative and a separate infrastructure package up for a vote on Friday.
The vote would secure final passage for the President's infrastructure package, which contains some crucial climate provisions; however, Build Back Better contains the bulk of Biden's climate agenda.
Central to that agenda was a clean energy program which would've rewarded utilities that shifted to nuclear, wind or solar and punished those that did not. At the time, experts heralded the program as the strongest climate policy in U.S. history. Progressive rallies were peppered with the cry "no climate, no deal."
At the insistence of the Senator Joe Manchin (WV-D), whose support is needed to advance the bill along party lines, the clean energy program was dropped. Taking its place is a $555 billion package, with $320 billion in clean energy tax credits, as well as other funding for grid improvements, electric vehicles and green manufacturing, among other provisions.
The 555 plan would only eliminate half the emissions of the original clean energy program according to The New York Times. But nevertheless, President Biden boasted the Thursday prior to the conference that the plan would cut US emissions by a gigaton by 2030.
Yet even that compromise faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Senator Manchin has made considerable efforts to pare back the scope and ambition of the spending plan, and has raised objections to certain policies in the bill passed by the House.
"I have a lot of concerns, let's put it that way," Manchin told Fox News on Wednesday night "They're working off the House bill. That's not going to be the bill I work off of."
On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Manchin agreed to work on a compromise deal while the Senate goes on recess next week Bloomberg reports.
While Biden concluded his speech with "God save the planet," perhaps he should've finished with the words "Mr. Manchin, do something."