What’s that Vlad? Putin’s embarrassing technical glitch at world climate summit
Vladimir Putin may be 'putting Biden to the test' says expert
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The Leaders Summit on Climate Change was attended by Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and the Russian President along with others via video call. But when Mr Putin was called to speak in the climate summit, he suffered a technical glitch.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave “the floor to the President of the Russian Federation” after a speech from Mr Macron.
No reply came from Mr Putin, who loomed silently for over a minute while the world leaders waited.
Mr Blinken, flustered by the lack of reply, tried alerting Mr Putin to no avail.
He then suggested: “He may be getting Macron…because that was a tape of Macron…”
Mr Putin, after 30 more seconds of silence, began speaking.
Emmanuel Macron was also making an address to the summit, but his speech came via tape delay.
The French President’s address came just before Mr Putin, and also didn’t properly play in Washington.
It was repeated again in full as soon as Mr Putin finished speaking.
But Kremlin sceptics immediately speculated the silence from Mr Putin was an attempt to unnerve Mr Biden.
Vice President Kamala Harris’s address, which opened the proceedings, was accompanied by a loud echo.
The echo problem continued as Mr Biden took the microphone, but was hurriedly fixed during his speech.
Mr Blinken later admitted: “We had some technical difficulties.”
Despite sanctions and tensions between the US and Russia, Mr Putin said during the remarks that Moscow is open to co-operating on tackling climate issues.
He said Moscow is “genuinely interested” in international cooperation to solve the climate crisis, and claimed the country had halved emissions since the 1990s.
Mr Biden also announced the US has pledged to cut carbon emissions by 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by the year 2030.
Mr Johnson hailed the announcement, and said cutting US greenhouse gas emissions is “game-changing”.
The Prime Minister also added: “We can do this together across the world.
“It’s going to mean the richest nations coming together and exceeding the $100bn commitment they already made in 2009.”
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