Science News

Clinton calls for broad steps on climate change (Roundup)

Apr 27, 2009, 20:02 GMT

Washington - US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for the development of 'meaningful proposals' to combat climate change as she kicked off a two-day international conference in Washington. Warning that the pace of global warming is overrunning even 'worst case' scenarios, Clinton said at the State Department Monday that the effort to reduce its effect must take place on national, regional and international levels. 'It took a lot of work by a lot of people to create the problem of climate change over the last centuries, and it will take our very best efforts to counter it,' Clinton said. President Barack Obama has made climate change and the development of clean, renewable energy a top priority for his administration, reversing the perception that the United States has for too long neglected the problem. The US and China are the world's leading producers of harmful greenhouse gases. 'The United States is no longer absent without leave,' Clinton declared. 'President Obama and I and our administration are making climate change a central focus of our foreign policy.' German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the United States remained 'far behind' the European Union in dealing with climate change and predicted tough international negotiations in the coming months. But Gabriel said the US appeared ready to accept international limits on its emissions and welcomed the shift in tone under Obama, telling reporters the atmosphere was 'completely different from one year ago.' This week's 'Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate' consists of the top environment officials from the world's 17 leading economies, including emerging giants like China and India. It comes ahead of the major United Nations gathering in Copenhagen in December designed to forge a new international accord to follow up on the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. Obama's goal to aggressively tackle US greenhouse gases is already facing resistance from Congress, where legislators are debating whether to scale back a far-reaching proposal introduced last month that would boost incentives for renewable energy and for the first time force companies to pay for pollution. The draft bill echoes Obama's pledge to aggressively tackle greenhouse-gas emissions, lowering them by about 15 per cent by 2020 compared to 2005 levels and 80 per cent by 2050. The European Union is aiming for much sharper cuts with a plan that would reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. Reaching a global deal will likely rise and fall on the talks between the world's top polluters. Obama, like his predecessor George Bush, has insisted that developing powers agree to limit their own emissions. China, India and other emerging economies have so far resisted tough restrictions on their own growing pollution. While this week's conference is not formally part of the lead-up to Copenhagen in December, environmentalists hope the meetings might help bring the two sides closer together. 'If developing and developed countries join in these early, concerted actions that take on the climate challenge directly, it would build trust and momentum toward a comprehensive deal in Copenhagen,' said Tim Wirth, head of the UN Foundation, a private advocacy group. Obama wants to lower US emissions by introducing a cap-and-trade programme, a system already in place in Europe that allocates pollution credits to companies and allows them to be swapped on the market between cleaner and dirtier firms. Republicans, businesses, and some Democrats have derided the measure as a tax and job killer in times of recession. A new Democratic counter-proposal in Congress would only reduce emissions by 6 per cent by 2020, the Washington Post reported. But Obama could also go around Congress by issuing executive orders through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA opened that possibility by ruling April 17 that that greenhouse gases threaten air quality and public health. The White House has indicated it would prefer to reach a deal with Congress. The State Department's special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, emphasized last week the importance of the United States reaching consensus within its own border before entering broader international negotiations. 'We don't want a repeat of a situation where we sign a lovely agreement in some foreign capital and not have it approved back here,' Stern told reporters. Former president Bill Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, but facing stiff resistance in Congress, never submitted it for ratification. Former president Bush withdrew from Kyoto and until late in his administration, downplayed the threat of global warming. The countries and organizations participating in the gathering in Washington are: Australia, Britain, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. The United Nations and Denmark attended as observers and will be hosting the December meeting.