Nov 8, 2021 10:04 AM EDT

WATCH: Obama addresses COP26

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Barack Obama is expressing confidence at U.N. climate talks Monday that the Biden administration will ultimately get its $555 billion climate package through Congress, and faulting U.S. rivals China and Russia for what he calls a “dangerous absence of urgency” in cutting their own climate-wrecking emissions.

The U.N. climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland, is the former American president’s first since he helped deliver the triumph of the 2015 Paris climate accord, when nations committed to cutting fossil fuel and agricultural emissions fast enough to keep the Earth’s warming below catastrophic levels.

Climate summits since then have been less conclusive, especially as the U.S. under President Donald Trump dropped out of the Paris accord. President Joe Biden has since rejoined.

Obama’s appearance on the sidelines of the talks is meant to remind governments of the elation that surrounded the striking of the Paris accord, and urge them to more immediate, concrete steps to put the 2015 deal into action.