WASHINGTON – The US Congress has proposed US$1 billion (S$1.35 billion) to help poor countries cope with climate change, a figure that falls significantly short of President Joe Biden’s promise that the United States will spend US$11.4 billion annually by 2024 to ensure developing nations can transition to clean energy and adapt to a warming planet.

The money is part of a sprawling US$1.7 trillion government spending package that lawmakers made public on Tuesday and are expected to vote on this week.

Democrats had sought US$3.4 billion for various global climate programmes, but Republicans quashed what they called “radical environmental and climate policies” in the spending Bill.

The Republicans are poised to assume control of the House in January, further dimming prospects for additional climate funds for at least the next two years.

The setback for Mr Biden comes a month after he appeared at the COP27 United Nations climate talks in Egypt, where he promised to deliver financial help to developing nations that are suffering from the effects of a climate crisis for which they are ill-prepared and did little to cause.

“The climate crisis is hitting hardest those countries and communities that have the fewest resources to respond and to recover,” Mr Biden told the gathering.

The US is the country that has historically pumped the greatest amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

This is the second year in a row in which Congress has reduced the President’s requests for climate aid. Activists said the inability of the Biden administration to meet its own goals undercut US credibility abroad and called into question the President’s own commitment to “re-establish the United States as a trustworthy, committed, global leader on climate”.

Democrats blamed Republicans, whose votes are required to pass the spending Bill, which did not include any money for the Green Climate Fund, a UN-led programme.

“Congress just bankrolled a defence Bill that was US$45 billion bigger than the President requested, but we failed to provide a penny to meet our commitments to the Green Climate Fund – a step that would truly help us defend our country and our planet from chaos and instability,” said Democratic Senator Edward Markey.

He said Republicans’ “refusal to engage on climate change in any meaningful way” was responsible for the shortfall.

A spokesman for Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Minority Leader, did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms Saloni Sharma, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said in a statement that meeting Mr Biden’s US$11.4 billion goal was a top priority.

“Over the past several weeks and throughout the past weekend, members of the administration worked to secure funding in Financial Year 2023 that puts us on a path to achieving this goal,” she said. “We will continue to work with Congress to make achieving this goal in FY24 a reality.”

Helping other nations adapt to and mitigate damage caused by a warming planet has always been a tough sell in Congress.

President Barack Obama promised US$3 billion to the Green Climate Fund, but delivered only US$1 billion of that money. President Donald Trump called the fund a “scheme to redistribute wealth out of the United States” and zeroed out money for it, as well as the bulk of other global climate finance.

The US$1 billion in international climate money in the spending Bill would be spread over several programmes, including the Climate Investment Funds, which are housed at the World Bank and are aimed at helping countries develop clean energy; the Global Environment Facility, a multilateral fund that focuses on biodiversity and tends to win Republican support; and smaller programmes directed at assisting the world’s poorest nations. The money marked a 0.09 per cent increase from Congress’ allocation in 2021.

Mr Jake Schmidt, the senior strategic director for international climate issues at the Natural Resources Defence Council, an advocacy group, said Mr Biden could still meet his US$11.4 billion annual goal but said it would be a “steep climb” and would require changes at agencies where the administration has significant influence, such as the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

Activists abroad said they were increasingly frustrated with what they see as a bipartisan American lack of interest in helping poor nations cope with the consequences of a crisis they did not cause.

“The US is the world’s largest historical emitter, and on a per-capita basis, the US remains one of the biggest carbon polluters,” said Mr Mohamed Adow, founder and director of Power Shift Africa, a group that aims to mobilise climate action across the continent.

He called the US funding levels “hugely disappointing” and said they showed a disregard for the UN climate body that established by global consensus ways to help poor nations.

“The US has promised much in terms of climate finance over the years, but it’s failed to deliver on many of these promises,” Mr Adow said. NYTIMES