polluter on this basis by far in the world, and it s absolutely critical that they come to the table because otherwise we re never going to reach our global climate goals. i think really, the united states had to get back into the position of, you know, moral leadership and economic leadership. i truly believe that what s going to happen is the governments will set the tone, will send a message that they have to do this, but i really believe that the private sector has made a huge change, is going to continue to lead on this, and really is going to produce things that nobody expects faster, cheaper, better in a way that changes the world in a way that it has to change going forward. but as you know, tom, regardless of what happens at the scotland cop26 summit in the coming days, the real test will be whether countries actually follow through on their verbal promises, right?
substantial, the biggest move by america by far, to address our climate crisis. i mean to put it in context, this is $555 billion and the biggest ever climate package in american history under the obama administration was $90 billion. so he has a very powerful weapon in his back pocket that says that america will live up to its pledge and can go back to leading the world in terms of climate. he s in a good position. as you know, tom, many of the leaders of the world s biggest polluters, talking china, russia, saudi arabia, won t be at this scotland summit in person. what options are there to try to hold them accountable? they ve got to get on board as well. you re absolutely right about that, wolf. i mean it is critical. this is global warming. it s absolutely imperative that every country, particularly china, i mean if you look at the numbers, china is the biggest
global minimum tax, which has been in the works for quite a while and janet yellen and president biden deserve credit for that, and g-20s are usually long on words and short on action, and i suspect that will probably remain the case as we approach glasgow, but i think for biden on balance it s probably going to bump up his numbers a few points back home. whether or not that makes a difference given the fraught climate is highly uncertain. what about this very strained relationship between these two nato allies, the united states and turkey right now? the president did have this separate meeting with the turkish president erdogan just a little while ago, and the u.s. made it clear in a formal statement as you heard, aaron, that the u.s. is not happy with turkey s, a nato ally, to purchase these russian air defense missile systems? you know, wolf, we continue to use the word ally when we
undue the measures that former president trump had taken and we haven t seen that on the same scale when it comes to tariffs. so this is significance in the sense that they will be rolling this, they will be scaling this back and we could potentially hear from president biden on this today. especially at a time when there s inflation in the united states. serious inflation going on, providing cost increases for so many products for middle-class families, and it s a serious problem. don t go too far away. there s more we need to discuss. kaitlan and nic. the fight against climate change moves to glasgow scotland, up next for the cop26 summit. tom is co-executive chair of galvanized climate solutions and also an environmentalist former candidate for president of the united states. he s joining us from london, ahead of the summit in scotland. the u.n. secretary general warned, quoting, there s a serious risk that glasgow will not deliver, that s a direct quote. do you share that concern
indication of how the world plans to deal with the other incredibly difficult issue that world is facing, the subject of the cop26 in glasgow, we re going to be in for some pretty dashed expectations in the weeks an months ahead. we have to keep trying, but you c cannot make a strong or inspiring case for multilateral case on either covid or frankly climate. aaron david miller, as usual, we appreciate your thoughts. thank you very, very much. we re staying on top of all the late-breaking developments here at the g-20 summit in rome and then heading to scotland for the climate summit, the cop26 climate summit. i will be flying over to scotland later today. i will be anchoring our coverage tomorrow and tuesday in the situation room from scotland. lots going on. let s take a quick break. much more of our special coverage coming up right after this.