Politics

(NEW YORK) — For the next two weeks, governments around the world will convene for a highly anticipated summit on climate change that has been billed as the “last best chance” to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and prevent the worsening effects of climate change.

Here’s how to make sense of all the news around the COP26 summit.

What is the climate summit?

The climate summit in Glasgow is called COP26, which stands for the 26th “Conference of the Parties” and represents a gathering of all the countries signed on to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Climate Agreement.

The group meets every year to discuss progress on the fight against climate change and negotiate how to fulfill the terms of climate agreements.

Last year’s in-person meeting was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic so COP26 will be the first time countries have met since the U.N.’s latest climate science report issued a dire warning that the impacts of climate change are getting more severe and that time is running out to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

COP26 President Alok Sharma said the pressure is on world leaders to ramp up their ambition to tackle the climate crisis at the summit.

“We still have some of the most difficult questions to answer. And we’re effectively in the last half hour of the exam,” he told reporters at a press conference organized by Covering Climate Now, an organization that collaborates with journalists and newsrooms on climate coverage.

Who will be there?

President Joe Biden and more than 100 world leaders will speak in the first two days of the summit to lay out their countries’ plans to reduce emissions and possibly announce new goals or commitments on climate issues.

But some important leaders from countries that contribute the most global greenhouse gas emissions like President Xi Jinping of China and Russian President Vladimir Putin are not expected to attend, citing concerns about COVID-19.

Influential figures like former President Barack Obama and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are also expected to attend to discuss the importance of taking action to limit the impacts of climate change. Climate activists like Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg are expected to lead large protests outside the official venue, pressuring world leaders to do more.

After the high-profile remarks to start the summit, other officials and negotiators from each country will hammer out technical documents detailing their agreements on climate policy and higher-ranking officials like Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry will meet with their counterparts to try to negotiate any sticking points.

What’s on the agenda?

Negotiators for this year’s climate summit will face questions about how to limit the impact of climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as how to help countries adapt to climate change in parts of the world where the effects are getting more severe.

The most critical item on the agenda for the climate summit is increasing nearly every country’s commitments to decreasing climate-warming emissions as quickly as possible. Even with current promises to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, the U.N. says the world is set to miss that goal to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The latest U.N. analysis says current commitments put the world on track for 2.1 to 2.7 degrees Celsius of warming, which would trigger more dangerous impacts of climate change like worsening severe weather and drought conditions that could start to hamper food production in parts of the world or make it more difficult for communities to survive.

“The time has passed for diplomatic niceties,” U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said at a U.N. meeting on climate action this week.

“If governments — especially G-20 governments — do not stand up and lead this effort, we are headed for terrible human suffering,” he added.

In addition to ramping up efforts to prevent climate change from getting worse, negotiators will also confront questions about how to deal with impacts of climate change that are already being felt and how to support vulnerable countries struggling with changes like worsening storms and sea-level rise.

The Paris Agreement promised $100 billion a year in financial support for developing countries to combat climate change, but wealthier countries expected to contribute the most to that goal have not followed through, so negotiators will need to come up with a plan to meet that goal as well as discuss how much to increase it going forward as the impacts of climate change continue to worsen. That funding is meant to both help poorer countries build renewable energy infrastructure to avoid expanding fossil fuel use and make changes to adapt.

But representatives of those countries say even that isn’t enough.

Pelenise Alofa, national coordinator for the Climate Action Network in Kiribati, said COP26 will be important for the future of her island nation and the conversation about climate finance should include compensating countries experiencing effects of climate change for helping residents relocate or recover from worsening or more frequent severe storms.

Alofa said Kiribati and other island nations face an existential threat from climate change as sea-level rise and worsening tropical storms threaten their ability to live and produce food.

“As someone living in the islands in Kiribati, loss and damage from climate change is now a permanent feature of our lives. It is not about a one-time event or disaster. It is about rising sea levels that threaten to totally swallow our homes,” she told reporters in a briefing.

What does success look like?

The U.N. secretary general has said there is a “high risk of failure” from COP26, but there is not a single outcome that will solve all the challenges that come with the global climate crisis.

Experts say they’ll be watching to see if the Glasgow negotiations make tangible progress toward the goals of the Paris Agreement, including watching whether countries like China increase their commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and burning fossil fuels, and if parties are able to agree on steps that can lead to real, measurable results.

But ultimately, even a successful COP26 will still be more of a step in the right direction than a final solution to the climate crisis.

“We have to have significantly turned the corner by next year or the year after or else we have no shot of keeping 1.5 [degrees Celsius] alive,” Jake Schmidt, senior director of the international climate program from the Natural Resources Defense Council, told ABC News.

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(NEW YORK) — Negotiations on the infrastructure and social program bills have consumed Capitol Hill for months. Still, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll out Sunday finds Democrats are failing to sell the legislation to the public, who are broadly unaware of what is in the spending packages or skeptical they would help people like themselves, or the economy, if signed into law.

President Joe Biden was unable to secure a legislative win before departing on his second foreign trip since taking office, even after he laid out a framework for the package focused on social programs and climate change around which he believes Democrats can rally. He pitched that package, which no longer includes paid family and medical leave or free community college, as a “historic economic” opportunity on Thursday, but this poll reflects the continued confusion and intraparty mistrust over these bills.

Although a majority (55%) of the public is following news about the negotiations at least somewhat closely, about 7 in 10 (69%) Americans said they know just some or little to nothing about what’s in both bills. Fewer than half (31%) said they know a great deal or good amount. Despite Republicans having sat on the sidelines while the White House works exclusively with congressional Democrats to get both bills to the president’s desk, the lack of knowledge extends across all parties.

Americans also do not feel like these bills would help them or the U.S. economy if they become law.

The ABC News/Ipsos poll, which was conducted using Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, found that a plurality (32%) of Americans think the bills would hurt people like them if they became law, while fewer (25%) think it would help them. Nearly 2 in 10 (18%) think the bills would make no difference, and 24% said they didn’t know.

Even among Democrats alone, fewer than half (47%) think the two bills would help people like them. A quarter of Democrats think the bills would make no difference for people like them and about 2 in 10 (22%) don’t know how they would impact their lives. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of Republicans think the bills would hurt people like them, and so do about 3 in 10 (29%) independents.

The American public is evenly divided — 34% to 34% — over whether they believe these bills would help or hurt the U.S. economy if they become law. Very few (6%) think the bills would have no effect on the economy, and a quarter don’t know. Democrats are much more likely to think the legislation would help the economy if enacted than Republicans and independents, 68% compared with 7% and 29%, respectively.

Biden’s inability to get these bills over the finish line has not helped the president’s mediocre approval ratings on an array of issues, which have solidified since the Sept. 24-28 ABC News/Ipsos poll.

His handling of the coronavirus pandemic and rebuilding the United States’ infrastructure are the only issues where a majority of the public approves of Biden — 56% and 52%, respectively — and neither is an improvement compared with the last ABC News/Ipsos poll. On both issues, he’s bolstered by near-universal support from members of his own party, as well as about half of independents.

Just under a majority of Americans approve of the president’s handling of climate change (48%) and the economic recovery (47%). Again, relatively high support among Democrats — 78% and 86%, respectively — keeps his approval from sinking too far.

Republicans are generally unified against the president on all issues, but overall approval for Biden takes the biggest hit on issues where Democrats’ and independents’ confidence drops.

While about half (49%) of independents approve of Biden’s handling of climate change, on other issues — economic recovery, gun violence, crime and taxes — independents’ approval hovers around 4 in 10.

The president’s overall approval dips below 40% on three issues: gun violence (39%), Afghanistan (34%) and immigration and the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border (31%).

Fewer than two-thirds (64%) of Democrats approve of Biden’s handling of gun violence. A similar share (62%) of Democrats approve of the president’s handling of Afghanistan. On immigration, Biden is barely holding onto majority support among his own party, with just 54% approving of him on this issue.

Only around 3 in 10 independents approve of Biden’s handling of immigration and Afghanistan, 29% and 31%, respectively.

METHODOLOGY: This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs’ KnowledgePanel® Oct. 29-30, 2021, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 514 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.7 points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions were 31%-24%-36%, Democrats-Republicans-independents. See the poll’s top-line results and details on the methodology here.

ABC News’ Ken Goldstein and Dan Merkle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — Construction of an oil pipeline deep in America’s heartland has become one of the most contentious environmental battles in the country.

The thousand-mile long Line 3 pipeline transports Canadian tar sands oil — a high-emissions fossil fuel often described as the world’s dirtiest oil — through indigenous lands and waters, including the vulnerable headwaters of the Mississippi River.

The project has been the target of multiple court battles and a years-long massive civil disobedience campaign led by indigenous women in Minnesota, resulting in nearly 900 arrests, including dozens around the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.

“Seeing the expansion of Line 3 tar sands into sensitive wetlands while there is a massive drought is really jarring and it should be for any person who is worried about the climate,” Tara Houska, a tribal attorney who has fought the project for years and co-founded a Line 3 opposition group, told ABC News.

Enbridge, the Canadian corporation responsible for the pipeline, describes Line 3 as a safety-driven replacement of an aging line first put in during the 1960s.

“We made the decision that it would be better for us, better for society, better for the communities that the pipeline runs through to actually look at replacing that pipeline,” Enbridge Chief Communications Officer Mike Fernandez told ABC News.

However, many critics refer to the project as an expansion. More than one third of the new Line 3 follows an entirely new route and the new, wider pipe will roughly double the operating capacity of the old version, according to state documents.

Enbridge argues they are restoring the line’s historic capacity which has not been operational for more than a decade. The move comes after some leading scientists pushed for a moratorium on tar sands growth all together.

“Climate scientists say, ‘Leave the tar sands in the ground.’ Full stop,” said Laura Triplett, an environmental scientist with Gustavus Adolphus College who testified against Line 3 during the permitting process.

Oil began flowing through the controversial pipeline on Oct. 1, marking a long-sought victory for its corporate owner and a devastating defeat for its opponents, who had pleaded with the Biden administration to halt the project.

“I am appalled by the lack of action on something like this,” Houska said. “You can’t be the climate president when you’re allowing through one of the largest tar sands infrastructure projects in North America. That’s his climate legacy,” she said.

The White House declined to provide a representative to be interviewed for this report, and did not respond to a request for comment.

Biden and the tar sands

Canadian tar sands oil requires more emissions to extract and transport than conventional oil. It also results in more carbon emissions when burned, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden described the Keystone XL pipeline as “tar sands that we don’t need — that in fact is very, very high pollutant.” He canceled Keystone XL shortly after taking office but has so far declined to intervene against Line 3, and his Department of Justice has defended the project in court.

“When I think about how much carbon is going to be emitted by this, I actually literally feel nauseous,” Triplett told ABC News.

Line 3 could emit between 35 and 193 million tons of CO2 annually, according to the project’s environmental impact statement — the latter being the equivalent of 45 new coal-fired power plants coming online or 38 million cars being added to the road, according to multiple independent scientists.

“If this pipeline is going to run and bring these tar sands oil to market, we have a much more even massive job to do, reducing emissions elsewhere,” Triplett said.

Enbridge argues that if the pipeline weren’t built, oil would have to get to market through even more carbon-intensive means such as truck or rail lines.

Triplett says there are road maps for how the U.S. can transition to a lower carbon emissions economy. “But none of those plans include building a brand new big pipeline to bring tar sands oil to market,” she said. “That’s not part of any transition. That’s terrifying.”

Dividing communities in its path

On the ground, the project has divided local indigenous communities in its path. Three tribes — the Red Lake Nation, the White Earth Nation and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe — have opposed the project throughout and sued to halt construction. The tribes say the project violates their treaty rights and fear the pipeline will eventually leak, contaminating sacred waters and vital wild rice beds.

Two other local tribes — the Fond du Lac Band and Leech Lake Band — came to agreements with Enbridge to allow Line 3 to pass through their reservations. They also agreed not to oppose the project, in exchange for an undisclosed sum of money and promises of future infrastructure investments, according to local reports. As of May 2021, Enbridge says it has spent $250 million with Tribal nations, communities and contractors.

Enbridge’s agreement with the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe included removing most of the old Line 3 pipeline from the reservation and building the new pipeline on lands to the south. Details of the agreement are not public, but the Bemidji Pioneer reported that Enbridge agreed to a broad commitment with the tribe to work on green energy projects.

The Leech Lake Band did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

In the case of the Fond du Lac Band — which originally opposed the project — leaders say the tribe was put in an difficult position after Minnesota authorities forced them to choose between allowing the pipeline to run along its existing route through the reservation or agreeing to a route south of the reservation that would still cut through treaty territory, where tribal citizens hunt, fish and gather.

“There is no perfect outcome here,” tribal council Chair Kevin Dupuis Sr. told MPR News at the time of the deal. “All remaining options threaten the environment for all, and livelihood of the Indigenous people of Minnesota.”

Fond du Lac member Rob Abramowski, who grew up on the reservation and has worked on Enbridge projects for years, including Line 3, welcomed the project.

“Enbridge went out of their way to encourage Native people to work on the pipeline,” said Abramowski, who is one of the 500 Native Americans out the roughly 4,000 temporary workers Enbridge hired to construct Line 3, according to the company.

Abramowski says the jobs are more than just temporary. “Because of the experience that they’re gaining here today, they can carry that as far as they want,” he told ABC News. Abramowski believes the new pipeline will be safer and less likely to spill, but most important to him is that his tribe appears to now have a seat at the table.

“The major part is that my reservation leaders have a say in what happens here, not only today, but in the future,” he said.

Other Fond du Lac members see it differently.

“The Fond du Lac Band cannot speak for all of the other Anishinaabe Nations,” Taysha Martineau, a fellow Fond Du Lac member and prominent Line 3 opponent told ABC News.

“When they approved Line 3, and they started construction, they took away the voice of the wider nation,” Martineau said.

The Fond du Lac Band Tribal Business Council declined ABC News’ request for an interview and did not respond to a request for comment.

Houska, who comes from a small town in Northern Minnesota, co-founded one of the groups most known for conducting direct actions: Camp Namewag. A former intern at the Obama White House and later Native American Affairs Adviser to the Bernie Sanders campaign, Houska says she’s “participated in the process as much as anyone.”

“What I observed over time was a process that was so incremental in its approach, that was incredibly inefficient in addressing existential problems like a habitable planet to live on,” she said.

Spills, past and present

Enbridge pipelines have resulted in two of the largest inland oil spills in American history. In 2010, an Enbridge pipeline dumped nearly 1 million gallons of tar sands oil into a tributary of the Kalamazoo River in Michigan, as Enbridge pipeline controllers ignored repeated leak warnings for 17 hours before shutting down the pipeline, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Enbridge CCO Mike Fernandez says the company spent $5 million cleaning up the spill and learned valuable lessons that resulted in hiring and training more staff. “It was a big wake-up call for us as a company,” he said.

However, incidents during the construction of Line 3 have opponents feeling less than optimistic. Minnesota authorities have reported 28 known drilling fluid spills during construction, including a spill at the headwaters of the Mississippi. Enbridge was also fined $3.3 million for illegally piercing an aquifer in January, which resulted in the loss of at least 24 million gallons of water.

“We were drilling, we found the problem. We took the problem to the State Department of Natural Resources,” Fernandez told ABC News. “They assessed a fine and we are going to pay it.”

Despite the project coming online this month, opposition groups have vowed to continue to fight Line 3, saying that their efforts have forced the fossil fuel industry to expect heightened resistance in the years to come.

“They know that we are a threat to their bottom line. And that Indigenous resistance and all of the people who feel inspired by that resistance is very threatening,” Houska said.

“I think we’re that stubborn thorn that just won’t go away. I mean, I think it’s pretty reflective of native people generally,” she said. “We underwent genocide, then cultural genocide, then displacement or removal. We’re still here after all that. And we aren’t going away.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration is considering making settlement payments to migrants who were separated from their children during the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance policy,” according to two people familiar with the planning.

Enacted in April of 2018, the policy that led to family separation drew widespread condemnation for removing children who crossed the border with their families and putting the adults into CBP custody, as opposed to keeping families together.

An Inspector General report in January found that former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was the “driving force” behind the policy, which was stopped in June 2018 after then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order.

The ACLU, among others, sued on behalf of families — seeking damages. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the payments, citing sources familiar with the matter saying an amount of around $450,000 a person — which could amount to nearly $1 million a family — was being discussed.

Officials who spoke with ABC News stressed on Friday that payment amounts have not yet been determined and could fluctuate per individual.

Former acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf slammed the proposal as “insulting to American taxpayers” and “dangerous” in an interview with ABC News on Friday.

“It appears as though they refused to go into court and to advocate against paying individuals or compensating individuals that have knowingly broken the law,” he said.

The Biden administration’s family reunification task force found that 3,913 children were separated from their families under the Trump administration.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas met with families who were separated in August and has previously called the policy “cruel.”

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(NEW YORK) — Letitia James, the attorney general of New York whose sexual harassment investigation led to the resignation of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, announced a run for governor Friday, mounting a formidable primary challenge to Kathy Hochul, the state’s first female governor.

James could become the state’s first Black governor and the nation’s first Black female governor.

James announced her candidacy in a video and through a campaign website highlighting her election promises and past work as attorney general.

“New Yorkers need a governor who isn’t afraid to stand up to powerful interests on behalf of the vulnerable,” James said.

Two other Brooklyn Democrats, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, are also interested in the job, along with Long Island Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi.

In August, James released a report that found Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, including a state trooper on his security detail. Cuomo attacked the report as politically motivated.

New York State Republican Committee Chairman Nick Langworthy called James a “radical left ideologue” who “turned a blind eye to Cuomo’s unethical behavior and corruption … when it suited her needs” in a statement Friday.

As attorney general, James has bolstered her profile with a lawsuit against the National Rifle Association. Her office is also investigating whether former President Donald Trump manipulated the value of some of his real estate holdings for tax and insurance purposes.

“I’ve sued the Trump administration 76 times,” James mentioned in her announcement video. “But who’s counting?”

She previously served in the New York City council and as the city’s public advocate.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Friday said it would make another attempt to end the “Remain in Mexico” protocols, a Trump administration initiative that forced tens of thousands of asylum seekers back into Mexican border towns to await their court dates in the U.S.

The administration has been under pressure from immigrant advocacy groups to end the policy but has met with legal roadblocks.

In a briefing before the announcement, Department of Homeland Security officials told reporters they had reassessed the policy, also known as the Migrant Protection Protocols, and Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas once again determined it was appropriate to end it despite acknowledging its impact in reducing unauthorized migration. One official pointed out that multiple factors can drive migration, but based on the department’s own assessment, the protocols had been effective in deterring border crossing attempts.

“In looking at the data from 2019, there is a fairly clear reduction in encounters at the land border starting around the time that the MPP was implemented across the entire border,” one DHS official said. “That said, you know, correlation is not necessarily causation.”

However, the officials said the humanitarian consequences outweigh the potential benefits of reduced illegal entries. Humanitarian organizations have documented high rates of murder, kidnapping and extortion on top of squalid conditions facing those subjected to “Remain in Mexico.”

A new policy memo to DHS officials dives deeper into the decision-making process by considering potential costs to states as well as potential improvements that could be made to MPP. However, the officials maintained that certain issues with returning migrants back across an international boundary will persist. Immigrant advocacy organizations have been principally concerned with the lack of access to legal services for migrants who are sent back.

“Once individuals are returned across an international border, there’s limited opportunities for the United States to be able to affect their safety and security once they’re in the control of another sovereign nation,” one DHS official said.

The acknowledgment of MPP’s deterrence capabilities is a significant concession for the Biden administration. For months, Republicans have condemned the administration for repealing “Remain in Mexico,” citing the decision as a driving force behind the record number of arrests at the border.

Biden suspended “Remain in Mexico” on his first day in office and Secretary Mayorkas attempted to officially end it in June. A federal judge ordered the Biden administration to reinstate the protocols last August in response to a legal challenge by the state of Texas and Missouri. The Justice Department continues to fight the order and hopes an appellate court will reverse it or remand the decision back to the district court.

Embedded in the district court’s order to reinstate was a suggestion that the administration needs to be capable of either detaining every migrant who attempts an illegal entry or subject them to “Remain in Mexico.” MPP was implemented by the Trump administration in 2019 and, as DHS officials point out, Congress has never provided enough funds to detain every unauthorized migrant.

Much of the administration’s ability continue the practice relies on cooperation from the Mexican government, which was initially opposed to the idea, but has since considered conditions under which it could be reinstated. Talks with Mexican officials are ongoing, DHS officials said.

Depending on whether the Mexican government will agree, the Biden administration is on track to reinstate “Remain in Mexico” by mid-November. Oral arguments are scheduled in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Nov. 2.

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(WASHINGTON) — Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans serving on the House Jan. 6 select committee, and one of the most vocal critics of the GOP’s embrace of former President Donald Trump and the “big lie,” announced on Friday he is not running for reelection to Congress next term.

In referencing his first campaign, Kinzinger made the announcement in a nearly five-minute video to supporters and posted to social media.

“I also remember during that campaign saying that if I ever thought it was time to move on from Congress I would, and that time is now, but let me be clear, my passion for this country has only grown. My desire to make a difference is bigger than it’s ever been. My disappointment in the leaders that don’t lead is huge. The battlefield must be broader and the truth needs to reach the American people across the whole country,” he said.

“I cannot focus on both a re-election to Congress and a broader fight nationwide,” he said.

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(ROME) — After meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, President Joe Biden will participate in a G-20 weekend summit in Rome, the first time leaders of many of the world’s largest economies have met in person since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic, increasingly urgent concerns about climate change, disruptions to the economic supply chain and uncertainty over the future of Afghanistan are some of the major topics on the summit agenda and likely to come up in Biden’s other meetings with world leaders.

The G-20 summit in Rome comes just before many of the leaders will participate in the COP26 climate conference starting Monday in Glasgow, Scotland.

Here’s are some key things to watch for:

‘America back’ or ‘America first’?

Biden declared “America is back” when he took office — a pledge to affirm, with tested and steady leadership, the alliances strained by four years of President Donald Trump.

But the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the swift collapse of the country to the Taliban frustrated and stunned some European leaders, who were forced to deal with policy fallout as well as resettling refugees from the war-torn country.

That, together with the Biden administration’s reluctance to ease travel restrictions for foreigners until the fall — much later than Europe — has led some allies to wonder whether “America First” didn’t leave the White House with Trump – and whether America can be counted on to keep its military and foreign policy commitments.

“The real question looming large over the summit is, how reliable will the United States be in the coming years? Not just because of the prospect that Trump could return, but where does Biden see America’s responsibilities shifting?” Brett Bruen, a former U.S. diplomat, told ABC News.

“There certainly are a lot of people after the withdrawal from Afghanistan that are wondering about their own security,” he said.

Plans for the pandemic, supply chain challenges

The G-20 leaders will meet in person for the first time since 2019 as the world is on track to miss the World Health Organization and United Nations’ goal to vaccinate at least 40% of the population in every country by the end of 2021.

The U.S. frustrated world health officials by moving forward with COVID-19 vaccine boosters — even as experts pushed to first use supplies to vaccinate more people across the developing world. Biden has promised to ship more than 1 billion vaccine doses abroad by next fall — but a key question is whether leaders will reach any agreement to speed up the production or delivery of vaccines to poorer nations.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Monday also told reporters that Biden hopes to improve “transparency” and communication between countries around supply chain bottlenecks. Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Thursday night, Sullivan said Biden would convene a supply chain meeting with other world leaders in Rome.

On the economic front more broadly, the U.S. also wants the G-20 countries to promote new forms of debt relief for emerging economies that have struggled during the pandemic.

The U.S. will also tout the new international agreement on a global corporate minimum tax of 15%, which, if approved by Congress in the United States and lawmakers in the countries party to the deal, would make it more difficult for multinational corporations to avoid paying taxes, potentially raising billions of dollars in revenue.

US and France: Repairing the oldest alliance

The last time they met in Europe, Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden laughed and clasped hands at the beach in England, huddling for longer than scheduled; the French president declared that America was “definitely” back.

Their upcoming meeting on Friday ahead of the G-20 in Rome could have a different tone, after the U.S. infuriated its oldest ally by announcing a new security agreement with the United Kingdom and Australia that scuttled a lucrative French military contract to provide a new submarine fleet to Australia.

The White House has run a full-court press to smooth things over with Paris after Macron briefly withdrew his ambassador to Washington.

Several senior Biden administration officials have met with him in Paris, and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Paris next month.

Separately, Biden could meet with other world leaders on the sidelines of both conferences. Sullivan on Thursday night confirmed that Biden is expected to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Scotland and will hold a meeting with the leaders of the United Kingdom, France and Germany in Rome on the status of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

‘Build Back Better’ or ‘blah, blah, blah’?

The White House had hoped to broker a major social policy deal with congressional Democrats before Biden left for Europe Thursday — and with it, new U.S. commitments to fight climate change. But having failed to do so, how will Biden sell any potential progress abroad when his party failed this week to pass a package that included $550 billion in clean energy and climate investments? A figure that experts say is insufficient to meet the Paris climate agreement commitment to reduce 2005 emissions levels by 50% by 2030.

Or, as activist Greta Thunberg — who will be in Scotland — put in remarks in September, will experts and activists see Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan as more “blah blah blah”?

John Larson, a director of power and energy research at the Rhodium Group, told ABC News that the still-developing Democratic climate plan “could be the single largest action by Congress, if not the federal government, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions ever.”

If an agreement is eventually cemented in Washington, its terms could eventually give Biden more credibility to extract greater climate commitments from like-minded G-20 leaders, Matthew Goodman, a senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said on a call with reporters ahead of the president’s trip.

Chinese, Russian leaders to skip attending in person

China’s President Xi Jinping will be participating in the G-20 summit virtually and will not attend the COP26 climate conference in Scotland. It’s a blow to the ambitions of the U.S. and other nations seeking to curb emissions given that China is the largest carbon emitter and home to half of the coal-fired power plants in the world.

At a time when some experts worry that Chinese military tests could prompt a new Cold War-style arms race, could the in-person meetings Biden has in Europe on the sidelines of the summits help align the U.S. and its allies against what the Biden administration has called “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century?”

Bruen, the former diplomat and Obama administration official, called Xi Jinping’s absence a “strategic mistake” that would work in Biden’s favor.

“The one thing that Joe Biden can do better than almost any other modern American president is to charm the socks off of even his deepest skeptics,” he said. “I would see this this as a moment for Biden to really try and use the powers of personal charm to advance what he wants when it comes to getting our fellow allies, and those that care about these issues, to do more than just say in private that they’re concerned.”

Another notable in-person absence: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

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(WASHINGTON) — A popular plan to let the government directly negotiate lower prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies — extracting significant savings for taxpayers and patients — will likely not be part of the Democrats’ sweeping social spending package, the White House said Thursday.

The development dashed hopes for what many consumer advocates had considered the best chance in decades for immediate relief to families burdened by soaring costs of medication. It also marks a major victory for drug makers who have spent millions of dollars lobbying against direct government intervention in pricing.

“Unless the government steps in and fights the fight for us, we have to fight it. And we don’t have a choice,” said Laura Marston, 39, of Washington, D.C., who needs daily doses of insulin to survive. The drug’s list price has risen 1000% over the last 25 years.

“Every day I feel like I live in a country that prides itself on freedom, but I don’t get to be free because at 14 I was diagnosed as a type 1 diabetic,” she said.

Americans pay more for prescription drugs than citizens of any other country in the world, on average $1,200 per person, per year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

While individual American insurance companies negotiate discounts with drug makers, federal law prohibits the government from doing the same thing.

Most Democrats and patient groups have pushed for changes to the law that would allow the government to negotiate prices through Medicare under a cap pegged to what other wealthy nations pay. Former President Donald Trump also campaigned on the idea in 2016.

“The idea is not just to have Medicare negotiate prices for its own program but to extend those negotiated prices to private insurance plans as well,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “This would put drugs on equal footing with other types of health care. Medicare negotiates or sets the price for hospital care, for doctor visits.”

The federal government could save $450 billion over 10 years, according to one Congressional Budget Office analysis — savings that could help offset the costs of other initiatives or reduce the deficit. Consumers would also reap savings at the pharmacy counter.

“Everyone would feel it through a couple of different channels. In some cases, it would mean less out of pocket at the pharmacy, and in some other cases it would mean less that we pay for prescription drug coverage,” said Andrew Mulcahy, a health policy researcher at RAND Corporation, who has studied the issue.

Drug companies have warned that the trade-offs from lost revenue would be significant, upending a key part of the U.S. economy, leading to job losses and less money for research and development of new drugs.

“Of course we make profit, but it’s not like we keep it, right? We return it to shareholders who give us money to take huge risk on R&D,” said Lilly CEO Dave Ricks, whom public filings show received a $23 million compensation package last year.

Ricks estimates that despite earning billions in profits, the company would have to cut experimental drug projects in half if the government capped prices — curbing the kind of innovation seen from manufacturers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Five of the six medicines approved globally to treat COVID are from American companies — two from mine, and three of vaccines that are used globally are from American companies,” Ricks said.

An independent government analysis forecasts there would be two fewer new drugs brought to market over the next 10 years, with 23 fewer over the decade after that.

Sue Millikan of Ohio, a retiree and grandmother covered by Medicare, says high prices concern her but so does the prospect of missing out on medical breakthroughs.

“We are able to do things here in this country because of our freedoms and invent things and produce things, and I don’t want to see restrictions to that,” Millikan said. “I can see where it’s happening in other countries where it limits how many drugs they get, when they get them, how fast you can get stuff, and I don’t want to see that happen here.”

While many Americans share those concerns, polls show that large majorities of Americans — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — have consistently supported government negotiation of drug prices.

“It’s really speculative to try to figure out what might happen, you know, 10, 20, 30 years from now,” said Levitt. “We don’t even know what scientific breakthroughs there will be, let alone what drugs might or might not come to market.”

“The United States is alone among developed countries in not having a role for the government in negotiating or setting the price of drugs, and that’s why we pay much higher prices than the rest of the world,” he said.

For diabetics like Marston, government negotiation of drug prices could mean between $28 and $176 less for a monthly supply of insulin, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress.

“It would be a great first step to demonstrate that and I think more people across both parties would benefit from that and appreciate that,” she said.

But the White House on Thursday said the idea doesn’t have enough votes in Congress.

“At the end of the day, there are not yet enough votes to get something across the line,” a senior Biden administration official, who asked not to be identified, told reporters.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oreg., who chairs the Senate Finance Committee and is a leading advocate for Medicare drug negotiations, says he is still fighting for a slimmed-down version of the plan.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is also adamant that the proposal be restored before a final vote on the social spending plan.

“The American people are very, very clear that they are sick and tired of paying the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs,” he said. “It is really outrageous that year after year, members of Congress talk about the high cost of prescription drugs and yet, year after year, we are not able to do anything about it.”

For now, the drug companies appear to be winning the debate. The industry is pushing alternatives for relief, like caps on out-of-pocket expenses for critical medicines and expansion of Medicare coverage of some drugs.

“Our understanding is this is a framework. We continue to stand ready to work with policymakers this year to enact meaningful reforms that will lower out-of-pocket drug costs for patients,” said Brian Newell, spokesman for PhRMA, the drug industry trade group.

In the meantime, millions of Americans hope Congress won’t squander this moment, and years of debate over drug prices will finally lead to some action.

“I don’t think anybody’s happy with how drug prices have gone up,” Millikan said.

ABC News’ Sarah Kolinovsky and Allison Pecorin contributed reporting.

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(WASHINGTON) — House Democratic leaders are pulling the plug on infrastructure this week.

The plan to vote on the $1 trillion infrastructure bill Thursday is now officially canceled, according to sources familiar with the situation.

That means President Joe Biden will not get a vote on the bill Thursday night as he lands in Rome.

Sources confirm that the House will instead vote on a short-term bill to extend surface transportation authorization Thursday, as it’s due to expire Sunday.

In a last-minute push before heading overseas, and after months of torturous negotiations, Biden on Thursday announced a “framework” of his economic plan in an effort to get all Democrats behind his social spending and climate policy agenda.

“No one got everything they wanted, including me, but that’s what compromise is. That’s consensus. And that’s what I ran on,” Biden said in remarks from the White House East Room.

Before taking the world stage, Biden put public pressure on members of his own party, especially House progressives, to come together to support what he pitched as a “fundamental game-changer,” laying out the details of the $1.75 trillion package he presented to House Democrats earlier Thursday morning.

“I ran for president saying it was time to reduce the burden on the middle class to rebuild the backbone of this nation working people in the middle class. It couldn’t have been any clearer — the very moment I announced my candidacy. That’s why I wrote these bills in the first place and took them to the people,” Biden said, using the presidential bully pulpit.

“I campaigned on that and the American people spoke. This agenda that’s in these bills is what 81 million Americans voted for. More people voted than any time in American history,” Biden said. “Their voices deserve to be heard. Not denied, or worse, ignored.”

But as the day went on it still wasn’t clear all Democrats, especially progressives, were on board, even at the risk of a major embarrassment for Biden.

In an afternoon news conference, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appeared upbeat when announcing the roughly 2,500-page social spending proposal was headed for markup, but did not commit to a vote on the bipartisan package on Thursday. She dodged when asked by ABC News Congressional Correspondent whether she trusts Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have been holdouts on provisions most Democrats support.

“I trust the president of the United States,” she said. “And again, the text is out there if they have some — anybody, any senator, any House member — have some suggestions about where their comfort level is or their dismay might be — then we welcome that, but I trust the president of the United States.”

Four weeks of federally paid family leave is out — a major blow to progressives — but done to cut the framework’s price tag in hopes that holdouts Manchin and Sinema would pledge their support for the social spending framework. House progressives were insisting on that before a House vote on the already Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Sinema signaled her support for the framework in a statement hailing “significant progress” — but it didn’t mention the word “deal.”

Late in the day Thursday, Manchin said, “We negotiated a good number.”

But Sen. Bernie Sanders, who wields large influence with the House progressive caucus, actively encouraged progressive colleagues in the House to hold out and oppose a vote now on the bipartisan infrastructure package until they see the legislative text of the larger social spending package and get assurances from all 50 senators that they support it.

“I want to see it improved,” Sanders told reporters. He noted the significance of the proposal but said “it has some major gaps in it.”

The progressive caucus later voted internally to endorse Biden’s framework but to hold the line until the social spending bill is ready for a vote.

That all but guaranteed the bipartisan bill would not pass Thursday, even if a vote was held.

A senior Capitol Hill official confirmed that Pelosi had told House Democrats to not “embarrass” Biden by voting down the infrastructure bill Thursday as he headed overseas.

The remarks were made behind closed doors at the Democratic caucus meeting Thursday morning and were first reported by CNN.

In his speech, Biden promoted the framework’s provisions on climate policy, another progressive priority, ahead of the COP26 UN global climate summit, saying even his scaled-back plan will “grow the domestic industries, create good-paying union jobs” and address “long-standing environmental injustices.”

“We’ll build up our resilience for the next storm, drought, wildfires and hurricanes that indicate a blinking code red for America and the world,” he said, noting natural disasters have cost $99 billion in damage to the U.S. in the last several years. Setting up a question to those who argue his plan costs too much, “We’re not spending any money to deal with this?”

He said his plan would not raise taxes on the middle class but “would continue cutting taxes for the middle class,” and instead raise them on the nation’s wealthiest Americans and corporations, whom Democrats argue haven’t been paying their fair share.

Biden can’t afford to lose a single vote in the Senate and only three votes in the House. He delayed his foreign trip to head to the Hill and lobby members of his own party to back the legislation he campaigned on.

Earlier, he pulled up to the Capitol shortly after 9 a.m., and then flanked by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, responded only with “It’s a good day” to a reporter asking what his message is to House progressives who don’t trust Manchin and Sinema — holdouts throughout the extended and often chaotic bargaining.

When reporters shouted, “Do you think you have enough of a framework to get progressives to support the infrastructure bill?” Biden responded “Yes.”

About an hour later, as he emerged, Biden told reporters, “I think we’re going to be in good shape,” but declined to answer more questions as he left the Capitol.

Biden was met inside the meeting with multiple standing ovations, sources told to ABC News, with some members standing up and shouting, “Vote, vote, vote!”

Democratic leaders were eager to put the infrastructure bill on the floor as soon as Thursday, but Pelosi — who doesn’t call for votes unless she knows has the support for passage — hadn’t officially called for one.

House Progressives emerged from a closed-door meeting and commended Biden for framework, but they still insisted they will vote no on the infrastructure bill if it hit the floor until a firm deal is made on the larger spending package.

“There are too many no votes for the BIF to pass today,” said Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.

“He did not ask for a vote on the bill today,” she said earlier in the day, referring to the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill. “The speaker did. He did not. He said he wants votes on both bills and said what we do on these two bills is going to be determinative for how the world sees us.”

Before his speech, the White House teased Biden’s remarks on his domestic agenda ahead his international trip, saying he is “delivering” on his promises to rebuild the middle class.

“After hearing input from all sides and negotiating in good faith with Senators Manchin and Sinema, Congressional Leadership, and a broad swath of Members of Congress, President Biden is announcing a framework for the Build Back Better Act,” said a White House statement that notably did not say he had an agreement.

“President Biden is confident this is a framework that can pass both houses of Congress, and he looks forward to signing it into law. He calls on Congress to take up this historic bill – in addition to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – as quickly as possible,” the statement said.

The White House said “the framework will save most American families more than half of their spending on child care, deliver two years of free preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old in America, give more than 35 million families a major tax cut by extending the expanded Child Tax Credit, and expand access to high-quality home care for older Americans and people with disabilities.”

The Child Tax Credit expansion, which Biden proposed extending until 2025, would now be only until the end of 2022. Paid family and medical leave, which Biden had originally proposed to be 12 weeks and then scaled back to four weeks, appeared to have been dropped altogether after Manchin objected, despite progressives fighting back. Two free years of community college that Biden had promised is not included.

It also claimed it represents “the largest effort to combat climate change in American history” and “the biggest expansion of affordable health care coverage in a decade,” saying it would “reduce premiums for more than 9 million Americans by extending the expanded Premium Tax Credit, deliver health care coverage to up to 4 million uninsured people in states that have locked them out of Medicaid, and help older Americans access affordable hearing care by expanding Medicare.”

An expansion of Medicare to cover dental and vision, a top priority of Sen. Bernie Sanders, is not in the framework.

And, the White House said, “it is fully paid for … by making sure that large, profitable corporations can’t zero out their tax bills, no longer rewarding corporations that shift jobs and profits overseas, asking more from millionaires and billionaires, and stopping rich Americans from cheating on their tax bills.”

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