Climate Change to Take Center Stage at U.N. Talks
by Stephen Power and Ian Talley
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Barack Obama promised strong action on climate change from his first day in office, but he is heading into a series of meetings with other world leaders this month under growing pressure to deliver on his rhetoric.
More than 100 world leaders, including Mr. Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao, are scheduled to meet Tuesday at the 64th United Nations General Assembly to talk about fighting climate change, in a prelude to the Pittsburgh Group of 20 meetings starting Thursday.
While the talk will be about the environment, the substance will be about money. Poor nations say that if rich nations want them to stop burning coal or cutting down forests, they should be willing to pay.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has made global warming a focus, and he is worried that the meeting won’t move the ball forward toward a new global climate-change treaty in Copenhagen this December to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
“We want world leaders to show they understand the gravity of climate risks, as well as the benefits of acting now,” Mr. Ban said. “We want them to publicly commit to sealing a deal in Copenhagen.”
While he said Tuesday’s closed-door meeting was “not a negotiation forum,” Mr. Ban said he expected the leaders to “to give their negotiating teams marching orders to accelerate progress toward an…ambitious global climate agreement.”
China has proposed that developed nations contribute 1% of gross domestic product to subsidize efforts by poorer nations to cut carbon-dioxide emissions. That translates to more than $140 billion for the U.S. alone. U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern says the Chinese proposal is “untethered from reality.”
Separately, China is trying to establish a voluntary market to encourage companies and individuals to reduce emissions. China Beijing Environment Exchange is scheduled to launch the country’s first voluntary carbon standard in New York on Wednesday.
Mr. Obama’s administration has begun to act on its own to cut emissions. Last week, the administration rolled out details of its strategy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cars. The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said the proposal paves the way for regulating emissions from other sources, such as power plants.
But a broad proposal to limit U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions is bogged down in the Senate, with Republicans solidly opposed and Democrats divided. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), said earlier this month that the Senate might delay a vote on climate legislation until next year. A spokesman for Mr. Reid later clarified that the measure could still come to the floor by year end.
Mr. Reid’s wavering added to the frustration among countries that had hoped for major progress toward a new global climate deal at the Copenhagen summit.
“Is the U.S. Senate really expecting all the other countries to make a serious effort on climate change at the Copenhagen Conference in the absence of a clear commitment from the United States?” John Bruton, the European Union’s ambassador to the U.S., said in a written statement last Thursday. “Asking an international Conference to sit around looking out the window for months, while one chamber of the legislature of one country deals with its other business, is simply not a realistic political position.”
