US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said at UN climate talks in Egypt on Thursday that she hopes Republicans will cooperate in the fight against global warming regardless of the outcome of midterm elections.
Pelosi led a delegation of Democrats at the COP27 conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh as the final results of Tuesday’s vote have yet to be known, though Republicans look poised to reclaim the House.
Speaking to reporters, Pelosi refused to speculate about the possibility of losing the House of Representatives, which Democrats have held since 2018.
“But just win or lose, we still would like to have bipartisanship in saving the planet,” she said.
“I think what you saw in this election was young people voting on this subject that took everyone by surprise, not us,” Pelosi said.
At a panel discussion earlier, the powerful lawmaker said that when climate legislation was discussed in the House of Representatives, Republicans said there was “no climate crisis. It’s all a hoax.”
“We have to get over that,” she said.
Pelosi touted the passage in August of the $370 billion Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark bill that includes massive investment in renewable energy.
No Republican lawmakers supported it.
But Democratic lawmaker Kathy Cantor said the future of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, which she chairs, would be at risk.
“It’s quite likely if for some reason the GOP ekes out control of the House of Representatives they will nix the climate committee,” she told the panel.
“They have not really been partners in tackling the climate crisis and it’s inexplicable because the world’s top scientists are telling us we are running out of time.”
US President Joe Biden will address the climate talks on Friday, facing pressure from other world leaders to fulfil pledges to help finance the green transition in developing countries and back the create of a compensation fund for damages caused by natural disasters.
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