GLASGOW, SCOTLAND — Less than every week after standing along with her progressive counterparts towards the bipartisan infrastructure invoice, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is presenting a united entrance with Democrats on the UN local weather talks in Glasgow. The Congresswoman is in Scotland as a part of a delegation of U.S. House representatives that arrived because the UN talks entered their essential second week and worldwide delegates work to hammer out a worldwide deal.

One of the primary public occasions scheduled for AOC when she touched down in Scotland was a public panel with Reps. Joe Neguse, Veronica Escobar, Mike Levin, and Sean Casten, all Democrats who had additionally simply landed in Glasgow. At the panel, the Congresswoman had what’s, for her, a considerably stunning message.

“America’s back—at COP, on the international stage as a leader in climate action and drawdown,” she stated.

AOC went on to speak in regards to the intersections of local weather change, Indigenous and racial justice, and fossil gas affect she noticed before she ran for Congress whereas protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. She additionally mentioned how she now sees these themes mirrored within the local weather program the Biden administration is bringing to the worldwide stage. The U.S. is “not just back” at its first COP after the Trump period, she stated. “We’re different, and we’re more just, and we’re more open to questioning what is politically possible.”

Never precisely a shrinking violet on the Hill, AOC has not been shy about criticizing what many progressives see as a very insufficient set of local weather insurance policies which are being hammered out on the Hill. She was one in every of six House members, together with all members of the Squad, who voted towards the bipartisan infrastructure invoice, handed by the House late final week, that was separated from the Build Back Better Act after some average Democrats expressed monetary issues about that invoice.

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In an Instagram live on Sunday, AOC explained that voting for the infrastructure bill, which would lock in emissions increases thanks to the expansions of bridges, roads, and other shipping networks, without voting for the climate measures in the Build Back Better Act made her uneasy. “I cannot vote to increase our emissions without a commitment to draw them down,” she stated.

But the Democrats as a whole must have a pretty fire climate group chat going, with an urgent message that’s arisen above all the intra-party fighting: show the world in Glasgow that the U.S. has its shit together. They seem to realize that the U.S. can’t say it’s a climate leader while seeming like a total mess at home. Like Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who told Earther Saturday that Build Back Better was “very close” to passing and that any outstanding issues were not climate-related, all five Democrats on Tuesday’s panel, including AOC, expressed confidence that it would soon become law, and that the U.S. can feasibly claim the victory it needs to put on a good front for the world here in Glasgow.

“When we pass the Build Back Better Act—I’m going to claim it, when,” AOC said at one point during the panel, eliciting some cheers from the crowd for the confidence that the legislation would clear Washington’s partisan gridlock.

Despite AOC’s compliments, there’s a host of Indigenous and Black and brown leaders who would absolutely question the Biden administration’s commitments to the themes she talked about, as well as how the U.S. is conducting itself at the talks. And, never to be simply a cheerleader for the most progressive climate administration of all time, AOC signaled that the U.S. still has work to do.

“We have not recovered our moral authority [on climate],” she stated throughout the panel. “We have to actually deliver the action in order to get the respect and authority internationally. We have to draw down emissions to get credit for being committed on climate change. It’s really that simple.”