AOC: Regaining world respect takes climate action, not words

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — The Democratic congressional delegation that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has led to the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, carries the Biden administration's message: America is back on the global climate stage.

But one member of the delegation, Congress's most prominent climate activist, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, added a caveat Tuesday: the U.S. still has to back up its words with action.

“We have to actually deliver the action to get the respect for it internationally, to get the credit," Ocasio-Cortez told reporters Tuesday at a panel on the summit with other young Democrats who swept into Congress in 2018 on platforms emphasizing far bigger U.S. efforts on climate. Ocasio-Cortez was answering a question about whether the United States had regained its standing globally in the fight against climate change.

Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate accord. President Joe Biden rejoined the global accord this year as one of his first acts in office. But Biden so far has been unable to get his biggest climate initiative, $555 billion in climate legislation that would drive down U.S. emissions from climate-wrecking fossil fuels, passed by Congress.

“We have to draw down emissions to get credit for being committed on climate change. It's really that simple," Ocasio-Cortez said.

Pelosi came at the midpoint of the climate talks in Glasgow. She is leading a sizable Democratic House delegation with 21 other lawmakers, including five House committee chairs.

Pelosi's is one of several congressional delegations that have turned up at the climate talks. That includes both mixed Democratic and Republican delegations, and all-Republican groups that are former strangers to climate summits who reject the Trump...