With the United States as politically divided as ever, the United Nations Climate Summit witnessed a rare bipartisan US congressional delegation attending the event on Saturday.

Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, led the Republican and Democratic group to the climate talks, where the first item on the agenda was to participate in a panel discussion about bridging the political divide on a variety of climate issues.

The move marks a sharp change from the era under former US president Donald Trump when the United States infamously exited the Paris Climate Accord. 

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The participating lawmakers said it marked an interest by Republican lawmakers on climate issues, and what they said was a bipartisan commitment on climate.

Republican Rep. John Curtis of Utah drew laughter from the audience at an Atlantic Council panel on Saturday by playing up the novelty of GOP lawmakers coming to spend time with thousands of ardent climate advocates.

“My name is John Curtis, and I’m a Republican. And I’m here” at a climate summit, said Curtis, the chairman of a conservative conservation coalition in the US Congress. 

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Coons is a co-chair of a Senate climate group that is bipartisan. More than a half-dozen Republican legislators, including Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, were planning to attend the session.

Republican politicians have mostly stopped publicly questioning the research proving that the burning of coal and petroleum is the principal cause of global warming after the 2018 midterm election, in which Democrats won seats on climate issues.

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According to members of the delegation, an increasing number of Republicans in Congress want to strive to limit climate change, despite the fact that Republicans and Democrats sometimes disagree on strategies, such as the role of government regulations.

The two-week-long COP26 climate conference is currently underway with around 120 world leaders and thousands of delegates gathering in Glasgow, Scotland, to discuss ways to curb global warming.   

With inputs from the Associated Press