G20 Summit: Biden expresses ‘disappointment’ at China and Russia’s absence

While the leaders of the world's major economies made a number of environmental promises, Biden voiced his "disappointment" that the Russian and Chinese heads of state did not attend the meeting in person. 

In response to a query about why NGOs thought the summit's climate promises were "underwhelming," Biden pointed to Russia and China's absence. 

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"The disappointment relates to the fact that" Russia and China, "basically didn't show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change," Biden said.

"I found it disappointing myself. But what we did do, we passed a number of things here to end the subsidization of coal, we made commitments here from across the board, all of us, in terms of what we're going to bring to" Cop26.

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"You’re going to see we’ve made significant progress, and more has to be done, but it’s going to require us to continue to focus on what China’s not doing, what Russia is not doing and what Saudi Arabia is not doing," he added.

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President Joe Biden and UN Secretary-General António Guterres were among the world leaders who expressed concern on Sunday at the G20 summit in Rome over the mediocre progress achieved in addressing the climate problem ahead of the United Nations climate conference COP26 in Glasgow. 

(With inputs from agencies)