Joe Biden and heads of state for many of the top polluting countries — China, India, and Russia, and the UK — were missing at the UN Climate Ambition Summit, where the ticket to participate was a more ambition climate plan. “The rich countries that have historically driven the climate crisis and are continuing to expand fossil fuels were given an opportunity ... to demonstrate their commitment to the 1.5°C global warming limit. Instead, we saw cowardice and a staggering failure of climate leadership,” Romain Ioualalen of Oil Change International said in a statement.