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GLASGOW – New York Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrived at the United Nations climate summit on Tuesday and said she was there to force the United States and other developed countries to take more action on global warming.
One of the Green New Deal’s co-sponsors, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, was surrounded by security as she walked the summit’s cavernous tented corridors and quickly caught the attention of a crowd of masked activists declaring themselves “climate feminists.”
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is part of a delegation of nearly two dozen House Democrats from California, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Ms. Pelosi said she is the largest group of Congressmen to attend a climate summit. They traveled to Glasgow to meet with leaders and lawmakers from other countries and to introduce what they hope will be a strong role for the United States to play in tackling climate change.
“We’re here to push,” said Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. “The time has come to reconsider our first world and global governments, reconsider their priorities for what is possible, and really try to push them to the limits of that.”
But Democrats are struggling to overcome divisions within their own parties to pass a budget bill that includes key elements of President Biden’s climate agenda. Legislation includes: $555 billion in tax credits and incentives promoting wind and solar power, electric vehicles, climate-friendly agriculture and forestry programs and a host of other clean energy programs. Together, these programs could reduce US emissions by a quarter of 2005 levels by 2030, analysts say.
That’s about half of Mr Biden’s goal of reducing the nation’s emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels.
While this would represent the most money the United States has ever committed to combating climate change, it is a weaker version of the president’s original plan. A mechanism to force utilities to stop burning coal, oil, and gas was largely removed from the bill due to objections from Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a Democratic senator.
An activist who followed Ms. Ocasio-Cortez through the halls of the summit, 24-year-old Pamela Elizarrares from Mexico, called the congresswoman her “inspiration”. But he also said it was frustrating to watch the United States Congress fail to pass strong climate legislation.
“They have a lot of power,” Ms. Elizarrares said of the United States, adding, “I think it’s really important for them to really speed it up.”
Stating that it was “gender day” at the summit, Pelosi noted that women face certain dangers in a warming world. Climate change is “the existential threat of our time,” he said. “A threat multiplier that amplifies and accelerates existing inequalities. Eighty percent of people displaced by climate change globally are women.”
Outside of the climate summit, the streets of Glasgow filled with protesters – most young women. Ms Ocasio-Cortez said she hopes to spend some time with the activists while she is in Glasgow.
“It would be a dream,” he said.
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