Earth Day 2021: Climate activists dump manure on Biden White House as Greta hits out with Twitter bio

Following on from a bad mic echo issues at the start when Kamala Harris was speaking, the summit has again been hit with an IT glitch that saw the French president silenced as a confused Anthony Blinken cut to a silent Kremlin, where Russia’s leader was waiting in the wings.

All very odd.

Putin is now on - his translator sounding unfortunately like Dr Evil from Austin Powers.

Harry Cockburn savours the awkwardness.

After Russia’s president muscled his way in to have his say, the floor was eventually handed back to his French counterpart.

Putin said Russia will pursue a reduction in methane and renew its focus on developing hydrogen tech.

Macron, Moon Jae-in of South Korea and now Indonesia’s Joko Widodo have since pledged their commitment to working towards zero-carbon futures.

Here’s Louise Boyle on Putin declaring Russia is “genuinely interested” in multilateral cooperation.

“We will win the future,” says the European Commission president, speaking confidentally of the continents ambitions for change.

Like Angela Merkel and Italian prime minister Mario Draghi before her, Von der Leyen made a point of welcoming the US back to the table after four wasted wilderness years under Donald Trump.

Another noteworthy speaker was Argentinian president Alberto Fernandez, who warned the world was on “a suicidal path” without major action being taken.

We’ve also heard from South Africa’s Cyril Ramphosa and David Kabua of the Marshall Islands.

King Salman of Saudi Arabia is now speaking.

The Brazilian firebrand was on relatively tame form here, pledging an end to Amazon deforestation by 2030 and a carbon neutral economy by 2050, 10 years earlier than last forecast.

He did though lash out at developed nations for “burning fossil fuels for two centuries” while defending Brazil’s own record on greenhouse gases.

Bhutan’s PM Lotay Tshering then gave an impassioned address calling on big economies to do more, saying his kingdom is contributing so much to climate action but suffering hugely from the ills of the wider world.

More technical glitches then hit Australian leader Scott Morrison.

The mangling of the pronunciation of “Glasgow” has been a constant throughout, a problem that will need to be ironed out before the Cop26 gathering in November.

Here’s Louise Boyle on Bolsonaro.

Ali Bongo Ondimba and Ivan Duque Marquez both take a leaf out fo Bhutan’s book to emphasise how badly their nations have been effect by the environmental crisis despite playing a minimal role in its creation.

They call on more developed countries to do more.

After hearing from Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Chilean president Sebastian Pinera, the Leaders’ Summit finally gets a change of pace and hears from 19-year-old climate activist Xiye Bastida, part of Greta Thunberg’s Fridays for Future movement.

She speaks brilliantly about how climate justice translates into social justice and demands the end of incentives for the fossil fuels sector.

“The climate crisis is a result of those perpetuating and upholding the harmful systems of colonialism, oppression, capitalism,” she says emphatically.

“You need to accept the era of fossil fuels is over.”

After a brief - and welcome - interlude, President Biden and his special envoy for climate John Kerry return to hosting duties.

Jamaican prime minister Andrew Holness has delivered his message, calling for cooperation to safeguard the Caribbean, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Felix Tshisekedi.

Meanwhile, Greta Thunberg has been telling the House Oversight Committee in Washington that US fossil fuel subsidies are “a disgrace”.

Here’s Nathan Place with the latest.

Hello. I’ll be taking over the Earth Day live coverage from Joe Sommerlad. To kick-off, let’s check in with my part of the world and see what Australia’s prime minister added to the White House’s climate summit today.

Calling in from about midnight local time Down Under, Scott Morrison didn’t buckle to international pressure to increase the country’s emissions reduction target.

The prime minister said goals would be reached through technology, not through taxes that destroy lives.

“For Australia, it is not a question of if, or even by when for net-zero, but more importantly how,” he said.

He added: “We’re deploying renewable energy 10 times faster than the global average per person, we have the highest uptake of rooftop solar in the world. Australia is on the pathway to net zero, our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can, through technology that enables and transforms our industries, not taxes that eliminates the jobs and livelihoods they support and create, especially in our regions.”

That was awkward.

As John Kerry thanked the president for being at the White House climate summit before having to step out, the pair seemed in a race to shower the other with praise.

“Thank you John and we wouldn’t be here quite frankly sponsoring this without you, thank you,” Biden said.

Sheepishly, Kerry responded: “Well, thank you, well, you called the summit *laughs*, ahh”.

Global solar power generation just dropped a few million watts with the amount of shade Angela Merkel threw at Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Accords in 2020.

German Chancellor began her comments at the White House climate summit with a not-so-subtle dig at Joe Biden’s predecessor.

“I’m delighted to see that the United States is back, is back to work together with us in climate politics, because there can be no doubt about the world needing your contribution if we really want to fulfil our ambitious goals,” she said.