Day 2 of G20 summit as COP26 opens

A visibly moved President Biden took the opportunity to reflect on his “personal” relationship with Pope Francis Sunday, praising the Catholic leader as “someone who's provided a great solace for my family when my son died.”

Biden did not directly respond to a question from reporters on a split in the Catholic Church, where conservative bishops moved forward this summer with a plan that would deny the President communion over his support for abortion, instead recounting a visit the Pope made to the US, during which time he counseled Biden and his family, “When I lost a real part of my soul—when I lost my Beau, my son.”

“And he came in and he talked to my family for a considerable amount of time—10, 15 minutes about my son Beau,” Biden recalled. “And he didn't just generically talk about him, he knew about him — he knew what he did, he knew who he was, he knew where he went to school. He knew what — he knew what a man he was, and it had such a cathartic impact on his children and my wife and our family.”

After Biden’s meeting Friday with the pope, he told reporters Francis told him he was “a good Catholic," and that he should continue receiving communion, despite opposition from some conservative American bishops over his support for abortion.

When Biden was elected, he said, the Pope called him “to tell me how much he appreciated the fact that I would focus on the poor and focus on the needs of people who are in trouble,” adding the Jesuit “is everything I learned about Catholicism, from the time I was a kid going from grade school through high school."

The President also acknowledged he was reluctant to divulge too much about his relationship with the Pope, telling reporters, “I'm not gonna lie, this is just personal.”

“I don't want to talk more about it, because so much of it is personal,” he later added.

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President Biden said Sunday that the US is “continuing to suffer” from the decisions of the Trump administration in specific regards to former President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal. 

Biden went on to say that the future of the Iran deal is dependent on whether the original partners in the JCPOA and the original agreement "stick with us and make sure there's a price to pay economically for them" if Iran fails to come back.

Asked whether his administration will respond if Iran launches drone strikes or makes any other provocation, Biden answered: “We are going to continue to respond.”

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President Biden criticized the lack of commitment from China and Russia at the G20 summit to agree to meaningful climate change initiatives.

Biden also spoke about the strength of his commitment to climate change in the US while his Build Back Better plan and infrastructure bills have yet to pass in Congress.

"I believe we will pass my Build Back Better plan and I believe we will pass the infrastructure bill. Combined they have $900 billion in climate resistance and dealing with climate and resilience and it's the largest investment in the history of the world that's ever occurred and it's going to pass in my view, but we will see," the President said.

More background: The Group of 20's leaders' summit ended Sunday with an agreement on climate that commits its member nations to end coal financing by the end of the year and aims to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. But the final communiqué lacked firm pledges and failed to put an end date on the actual use of coal. 

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CNN's Angela Dewan contributed to this report.

President Biden addressed efforts to ease the supply chain backlogs during his remarks from Rome, Italy, following the G20 summit.

The President made a push for his domestic agenda and the Build Back Better plan and how it will assist in "strengthening" the supply chain.

"In the Build Back Better framework which is, God willing, going to be voted on as early as sometime this coming week... includes, for the first time, several billion dollars to help strengthen the supply chain to make sure that we have access to everything that we need —and it's going to give workers and folks making all these products just a little bit of breathing room," Biden said.

Some context on the supply chain issue in the US: As families across the country deal with wide-ranging impacts of the congested supply chain -- from delayed furniture to rising car prices -- others are facing a more acute problem: finding enough to eat.

A survey published in September by Impact Genome and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found 23% of Americans experienced food challenges in the past year, with 37% receiving some type of food assistance from non-profits or the government.

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President Biden is speaking to reporters following the high-stakes G20 summit, where leaders failed to make a net-zero pledge.

The Group of 20's leaders' summit ended Sunday with an agreement on climate that commits its member nations to end coal financing by the end of the year and aims to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

But the final communiqué lacked firm pledges and failed to put an end date on the actual use of coal. It did not make any commitments to improve on issues like climate finance, paving the way for difficult negotiations at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, which kicks off Monday.

CNN's Angela Dewan contributed to this report

Keeping the global average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celcius will require "meaningful" and "effective actions," said the G20 leaders in their closing statement Sunday. 

The leaders of the world's dominant economies remain "committed" to upholding the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement, according to the statement. 

"Clear national pathways" which align long-term ambitions with short and medium-term goals will be integral alongside cooperation with the financial and technology sectors, they said. 

"Sustainable and responsible consumption and production" will serve as "critical enablers, in the context of sustainable development," the leaders added. 

The statement failed to make iron-clad commitments to key climate targets such as the net zero pledge, instead "acknowledging the key relevance of achieving global net zero greenhouse gas emissions or carbon neutrality by or around mid-century."

The leaders pledged to end the provision of international public finance for new coal power generation abroad by the end of this year but didn't mention a specific timescale for the entire phasing out of coal power as an energy source.

They also acknowledged that methane emissions "represent a significant contribution to climate change" but failed to express support for the Global Methane Pledge, which Australia has refused to sign. 

G20 countries will strive to phase out subsidies to fossil fuels "over the medium term" which "encourage wasteful consumption," the statement added.  

The leaders did however recognize that "G20 members can significantly contribute to the reduction of global greenhouse gas emissions", saying they committed "in line with the latest scientific developments and with national circumstances" to update their 2030 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) where necessary.  

More context: United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres left the summit slightly disheartened, saying in a tweet that he was leaving Rome with "my hopes unfulfilled."

Countering that at least these hopes "were not buried," the UN chief said he would be directing his attention now on the COP26 summit in Glasgow and keeping "the goal of 1.5 degrees alive."

In a post summit press conference, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson lamented the fact that "just twelve G20 members have committed to reach net zero by 2050". 

"The country's most responsible for historic and present-day of emissions are not yet doing their fair share of the work" he warned. 

Russia does not intend to adhere to the 2050 deadline for achieving carbon neutrality imposed by western countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sunday on the sidelines of the G20 summit. 

The G20 members managed to reach an agreement on signing the communique early Sunday morning but Russia has set 2060 as its own target date for carbon neutrality, rather than the proposed 2050 date, according to Lavrov.

“We don’t like to go by empty ambitions and empty promises,” Lavrov said. “The European Union promised to do away with the Russian gas pipelines and to buy all its needs on the spot. What happened with this ambition? We all know. So we have announced that we will do this, we will reach carbon neutrality by no later than 2060. This is our calculated commitment and we are sticking to it.”

On Friday: Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his country is committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2060.

“We decided to implement a new program to improve energy efficiency (by) 2035. This program will make an important contribution to our achieving carbon neutrality by 2060 at the latest,” Putin said via videoconference during the G20 summit second session Sunday. “Moreover, we do not just intend to achieve carbon neutrality; we are also going to make sure that in the next three decades, the accumulated volume of net greenhouse gas emissions in Russia will be even lower than that of our neighbors and colleagues in the European Union."

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday that the G20 summit did not fulfill his hopes, but did not bury them either.

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Heavy rains and strong winds have caused delays and cancellations to trains heading from London to Glasgow, where the UN climate change summit COP26 is underway.

A tree fell on the tracks on Sunday morning due the weather conditions on the train line London Euston-Glasgow and teams on the ground are working on the disruption, a National Rail press officer told CNN over the phone.

In a more recent update, LNER added that "Network Rail are on site and expect to be able to reopen the lines soon. Services will be very busy when they resume and will remain subject to disruption for the rest of the day. We continue to advise you do not travel."