The United States sought to reassure the UN climate summit in Egypt on Tuesday that it will stick to its energy transition even if Republicans triumph in midterm elections.
The COP27 talks have been dominated by calls for wealthier nations to step up their commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions and fulfil pledges to financially help poorer nations green their economies.
Developing countries devastated by natural disasters have argued for a windfall tax on the profits of oil companies and demanded that rich polluters compensate them for the damage caused by their emissions.
A Republican victory could be a boon to the ambitions of former president Donald Trump, who is expected to make another bid for the White House.
Trump had pulled the United States out of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Biden returned the United States to the pact on his first day in office in 2020.
He said that even if Democrats lose the election, "President Biden is more determined than ever to continue what we are doing."
"And most of what we are doing cannot be changed by anybody else who comes along," Kerry said. "The marketplace has made its decision to do what we need to do to respond to the climate crisis."
Some 100 world leaders were attending the summit on Monday and Tuesday but Biden will only come on Friday after the midterms. He then heads to Cambodia for the annual US-ASEAN summit and then on to Indonesia for a G20 summit.
- Oil profit tax -
Nations worldwide are coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that have taken thousands of lives this year and cost billions of dollars.
They range from devastating floods in Nigeria and Pakistan to droughts in the United States and several African nations, as well as unprecedented heatwaves across three continents.
Countries are under pressure to step up efforts to reduce emissions in order to meet the ambitious goal of preventing temperatures from rising by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial era.
One after the other, leaders of developing nations called for the establishment of a "loss and damage" fund that would compensate them for the destruction caused by natural disasters, arguing that rich nations are responsible for the biggest share of emissions harming the planet.
"While they are profiting, the planet is burning," Browne told fellow leaders.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called Monday for a 10 percent tax on oil companies to fund loss and damage.
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© Agence France-Presse
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