Obama to speak at UN COP26 climate summit in Glasgow on Monday

(CNN) – Former US President Barack Obama will deliver remarks Monday at the UN climate conference in Glasgow in a return to the world stage focused on the climate crisis.

The speech at the international climate summit, dubbed COP26, will place the threat of climate change in a broader context, Obama spokeswoman Hannah Hankins said in a previous statement. The former president, he said, specifically “will expose the significant progress made in the five years since the Paris agreement came into force, highlight the leadership of young people around the world, and urge everyone – governments, the private sector, philanthropy and civil society – take stronger action going forward. “

Obama’s presence at COP26 began with suggestions from climate activists. But it really took shape in the conversation with John Kerry, his former secretary of state and President Joe Biden’s special presidential envoy for the climate, people familiar with the conversations told CNN.

The White House was eager for help, officials said, requesting anonymity to discuss the behind-the-scenes conversations.

Obama and the climate crisis

Obama had addressed environmental issues while in office, but former President Donald Trump, a longtime climate crisis denier, tried to remove many of the security measures put in place by the Obama administration to limit greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse. Since taking office, Biden has been reversing many of these actions by the Trump administration and has made ambitious promises to address the climate crisis.

In particular, the climate summit takes place five years after the entry into force of the Paris agreement. In 2015, after COP21, more than 190 countries signed the agreement at that time to limit the rise in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but preferably 1.5 degrees.

Biden brought the US back to the Paris accord after Trump removed the country, and he apologized to world leaders in remarks on the first day of COP26.

“I suppose I should not apologize, but I do apologize for the fact that the United States, the last administration, withdrew from the Paris Accords and put us at a disadvantage,” the president said last week in Glasgow.

CNN’s Isaac Dovere, Jeff Zeleny, and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.