Biden wants record $11 billion in climate aid. Congress may not deliver.

But it’s unclear whether Congress will deliver anywhere near that amount — and failure to do so could undercut progress at the crucial next round of United Nations climate talks.

The details: The White House budget, which represents an opening offer in broader negotiations with Congress, calls for more than $11 billion in international climate finance for the fiscal year that begins in October.

• That marks a steep increase from the roughly $2.7 billion that Biden requested last year, as well as the roughly $1 billion that lawmakers approved last year.
• It comes after Biden pledged last fall to quadruple the U.S. annual contribution to international climate finance to $11.4 billion by fiscal year 2024.
• Out of more than $11 billion total, approximately $1.6 billion would go to the Green Climate Fund, which finances climate mitigation and adaptation projects in developing countries, according to a White House fact sheet.

As a messaging tool, the request signals that the Biden administration prioritizes the need to help poor nations cope with rising seas, stronger storms and other disasters fueled by rising global temperatures. 

In practice, however, Congress has a long history of whittling down the numbers in budget requests from presidents of both parties.

“The executive [branch] proposes; the legislative [branch] disposes,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) told reporters on Monday. “That’s totally the way it works.”

Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the top Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, signaled that the White House may struggle to find 10 GOP votes in the Senate for sending climate finance to other countries amid record inflation at home.

“President Biden’s budget is another pipe dream of liberal activism and climate extremism,” Barrasso said in a statement. “It spends too much, borrows too much and taxes too much.”

If Congress fails to deliver significant climate finance for developing nations, the United States could lose credibility at the next U.N. climate conference in Egypt in November, known as COP27, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), one of the most vocal climate hawks on Capitol Hill.

“It’s very important to our credibility,” Whitehouse told reporters on Monday, adding that if U.S. negotiators show up to COP27 with little climate finance to offer other countries, “then we look like jerks.”

Already, U.S. credibility on global warming is teetering. While Biden campaigned on an ambitious climate plan, his signature climate legislation remains stalled in the Senate, despite signs of a potential revival of negotiations with holdout Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.).

Complicating matters, the midterm elections fall on the second day of COP27. If Republicans regain control of one or both chambers of Congress in the midterms, that would signal to the rest of the world that U.S. politicians won’t pass either international climate finance or domestic climate legislation, said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at E3G, a European think tank.

“If that occurs, the assumption…