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US President Joe Biden has invited 40 nations to participate in the two-day virtual Leaders Summit on Climate and it will take place later this week. The invited countries include those 17 that make up the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. It was a US-led coalition created in 2009 and designed to convene the world’s economic leaders in climate dialogue that includes China, Brazil, and the European Union. These countries produce at least 80% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Some smaller nations such as Antigua, Barbuda, Bhutan, and the Marshall Islands weren’t invited because of their impact on the earth, but the earth’s impact on them. Point to be noted that warming the planet has caused hurricanes, droughts, and rising sea levels.

Any country from Central America wasn’t added to the invitation list including El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. People are fleeing the turbulent ‘Northern Triangle’ for America, destabilized by natural disasters and poverty. A senior advocate and program manager for the Climate Displacement Program at Refugees International, Kayly Ober said, “It’s a shame because these issues are interconnected”. Ober said the absence might be a sign the Biden administration is looking to prevent derailing more direct conversations on immigration. President Biden has put forth a $4 billion, 4-year plan to address the root causes of Central American migration. Ober added, “To believe that the Northern Triangle shouldn’t be at the table and that they wouldn’t add nuance to climate action discussions is a little one-dimensional”.

President Biden also said that the climate crisis fuels the immigration crisis. Last month, he blamed Donald Trump for not giving enough aid to the Northern Triangle in the wake of weather disasters. Biden said, “When this hurricane occurred, two hurricanes Eta and Iota, instead of us going down and helping in a major way so that people would not have reason to want to leave in the first place because they didn’t have housing or water or sustenance, we did nothing”. A White House spokesperson said, “The Summit is only one of several major climate-related events in the run-up to COP-26 and the primary objective of the Summit is to encourage the world’s major economies to lead the climate fight. The invited smaller countries are especially vulnerable to climate impacts”.