Joe Biden lambasts China for Xi’s absence from climate summit

It is a gigantic issue and they just walked away,' says US president, who also criticises Russia's failure to attend Cop26

Joe Biden launched a stinging attack on China on Tuesday for the failure of the country's president, Xi Jinping, to show up to the Cop26 UN climate summit, and failing to show leadership on the climate crisis.

The US president said it was a big mistake" that his Chinese counterpart had chosen not to attend the summit, where more than 120 world leaders have spent the last two days discussing ways to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C.