Trump mocks Sleepy Joe for nodding off during COP26 climate change conference in Scotland

Former President Donald Trump mocked President Joe Biden, 78, for briefly dozing off on Monday before his speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow on Monday.  

‘Even Biden couldn’t stand hearing so much about the Global Warming Hoax, the 7th biggest Hoax in America,’ Trump joked in an email, after seeing pictures of the snoozing Biden. 

‘…followed closely behind by the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2 and, of course, the “No Collusion” finding of the Mueller Report,’ Trump added. 

‘Biden went to Europe saying Global Warming is his highest priority, and then promptly fell asleep, for all the world to see, at the Conference itself. Nobody that has true enthusiasm and belief in a subject will ever fall asleep!’ 

Trump’s comments came after his political team announced that he was holding a virtual rally on the election eve of Virginia’s governor race on behalf of Glenn Youngkin, the Republican nominee.

President Biden, who is the oldest person to assume the presidency, was captured getting some shut-eye for the better part of half a minute while disability activist Eddie Ndopu underscored the importance of taking action to save the climate in a pre-recorded message. 

He then opened his eyes and appeared to lighten up when an aide walked up to him to chat. 

Soon after, Biden sat forward and rubbed his eyes as Italy’s prime minister took the stage. The latest slip from the president came just hours after he reverted to pre-approved list of reporters when asking questions at the end of the G20 summit in Rome. 

The 78-year-old Biden and his fitness for the job have been scrutinized by critics while his dropping poll numbers have put pressure on his administration and mounting crises he faces. 

He hasn’t released a medical report since 2019 and Jen Psaki has deflected questions about his health and coughing during speeches. 

Later on, Biden himself took the stage as to deliver his own warning on the impending doom of climate change and wiped .

‘Climate change is already ravaging the world,’ he told a crowd at the United Nations climate summit. ‘It’s not hypothetical.’ 

The president called climate change ‘the existential threat to human existence as we know it.’ 

‘This is a decisive decade in which we have an opportunity to prove ourselves,’ Biden continued. ‘We can keep the goal of limiting global warming to just 1.5° C if we come together.’ 

‘We’re still falling short. There’s no more time to hang back or sit on the fence or argue amongst ourselves. This is a challenge of our collective lifetimes,’ he continued. ‘Glasgow must be the kick-off of a decade of ambition & innovation to preserve our shared future.’

The president took a swing at Donald Trump in a separate speech at the conference. ‘I shouldn’t apologize but I do apologize,’ Biden said of Trump taking the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.  

Biden concluded his speech: ‘God bless you all and may God save the planet.’ 

Speakers were only allowed three minutes, but Biden’s remarks went far beyond the allotment, coming in at over 11 minutes. 

A digital countdown from three minutes began at the start of the speech, and after each minute a speaker went beyond the time a chime sounded. The chime went off eight times during Biden’s remarks. 

Boris Johnson has warned COP26 delegates that the longer it takes to tackle climate change, the higher the cost will be when a ‘catastrophe’ forces world leaders to act.

Johnson said the world was in the same position as James Bond as he tries to deactivate a doomsday device in his films. But he said: ‘The tragedy is this is not a movie and the doomsday device is real.’

Coining a phrase from activist Greta Thunberg, he warned that the promises to limit global temperature rises under the Paris Agreement would be ‘nothing but blah blah blah’ and the world’s anger would be uncontainable unless Cop26 was the moment they got real about climate change. 

Thunberg recently chastised Britain and other nations for ’empty words and promises’, accusing them of delivering too much ‘blah blah blah’ instead of offering any real action. 

Thunberg spoke at a climate demonstration nearby as the summit was taking place. 

‘No more blah blah blah, no more whatever the f*** they are doing inside there,’ she said at Festival Park, Glasgow on Monday. 

‘Inside Cop, there are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously, pretending to take the present seriously. Change is not going to come from inside there, that is not leadership – this is leadership… We say no more blah blah blah, no more exploitation of people and the planet.’

Biden touched down in Scotland on Monday morning before promptly climbing into his huge motorcade to travel to a climate summit where he plans to tout American leadership on tackling carbon emissions, after spending the weekend in Rome meeting with Pope Francis and Italian leaders and attending the G2-.

After making the short hop from Rome in Air Force One – a modified 747 – his gas-guzzling convoy of more than 20 vehicles will raise fresh criticisms of hypocrisy.

At the G20 in Rome he used an 85-vehicle convoy, including vans for officials, secret service and journalists, as well as ambulances and communications systems. 

He was greeted warmly by Boris Johnson, British prime minister, and U.S. Secretary General Antonio Guterres when he arrived at the conference center. The leaders swapped elbow bumps and warm smiles. 

The presidents of key polluters Russia and China are not attending the talks and India has said it will not be changing its reliance on coal any time soon.  

Biden will today release a detailed plan to half carbon emissions by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels. 

And he plans to launch a scheme to raise $3 billion a year to help developing countries adapt to climate change.

His national security adviser used the proposals to throw down a challenge to other nations.

‘So the US is stepping up to do its part key,’ said Jake Sullivan aboard Air Force One en route to Edinburgh. 

‘US allies Japan, Korea, the European Union, Canada, others are stepping up to do their part. 

‘And now the question is: Will some of the remaining countries step up to do theirs?’ 

Biden arrived from a G20 summit in Rome where he touted the power of America ‘showing up.’ 

‘What we’ve seen again here in Rome is what I think is the power of America showing up and working with our allies and partners to make progress in issues that matter to all of us,’ he said, adding that allies wanted ‘American leadership’ to get things done. 

Biden again relied on a cheat sheet of ‘pre-approved’ reporters as he held a press conference at the conclusion of the G20 summit in Rome on Sunday.

As he opened up the floor to questions, at the start of the the press conference, the president seemed to be using a pre-ordained list of correspondents to call on.

‘And now I’m happy to take some questions. And I’m told I should start with AP, Zeke Miller,’ Biden said.

The preferred pecking order for the administration seems to be The Associated Press, The Washington Post, NBC News, Reuters and Bloomberg News. 

Biden claimed other leaders sought him out as he fended off a question about whether he could provide leadership amid falling poll numbers at home.

‘The United States of America is the most critical part of this entire agenda, and we did it,’ Biden said. 

However, skeptics say few concrete measures were agreed on how to keep the world to temperature rises of less than 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels – a target set at the Paris climate summit in 2015.

And Biden lost key clean energy pledges from his Build Back Better agenda in recent weeks as the price for winning over opponents in his own party to its huge $3.5 trillion cost. 

The Supreme Court could yet strip his administration of more powers to limit emissions.

Then there is the awkward matter of his travel arrangements.

His trip to Europe is estimated to release 2.2 million pounds of carbon.  

The gigantic carbon footprint is comprised of 2.16 million pounds of carbon dioxide generated by the four large planes that comprise his airborne entourage on the trip to Italy and Scotland, where the president will speak at the COP26 summit on change in Glasgow, with the remainder emitted by Biden’s cars. 

His fleet is comprised of the heavily modified Boeing 747 he travels on, known as Air Force One when the president is on board, an identical decoy, and two huge C-17 Globemaster planes to carry his battalion of cars and helicopters.

But expect to hear more about American leadership, Biden’s climate adviser Gina McCarthy told reporters.    

‘This is a message you’re going to see from the president over the next two days and from dozens of cabinet officials who will be in Glasgow over the next two weeks: the United States is back at the table, we’re back, hoping to rally the world to tackle the climate crisis,’ he said.

She said the U.S. would release a plan to show it can half U.S. carbon emissions by 2023 from 2005 levels en route to its net-zero target by 2050. 

‘It illustrates how, within three decades, the U.S. can meet our global climate commitments by decarbonizing the power sector, electrifying transportation and buildings, transforming industry, reducing non-CO2 emissions, and reinvigorating our natural lands,’ she said.

Special climate envoy John Kerry also pushed back on criticism that COP 26 was getting off to a lackluster start, with only modest action on the 1.5C target in Rome. 

He said nations representing 65 percent of the world’s GDP were committed to the effort. 

‘Obviously, if you have 65% in, you got 35% out, and that’s the challenge coming out of Glasgow,’ he said. 

‘Can those countries step up? How fast will they step up? What will they pledge to do over the course of the next years?’

Summit host Boris Johnson, the British prime minister, lambasted G20 leaders on Sunday, saying only 12 of 20 had promised concrete action on hitting net zero emissions by 2050. 

‘Humanity has long since run down the clock on climate change,’ he is expected to say during Monday’s opening session, according to speech excerpts released by his office. 

‘It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now.’