US "a bit more optimistic" about climate deal after Washington talks

Wednesday, 29 April 2009 10:42

The top U.S. special envoy on climate change said Tuesday that he is slightly more optimistic about striking a new international agreement to curb global warming after a two-day meeting with the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gases.

The climate change envoy Mr. Todd Stern,  told reporters at a briefing Tuesday (29 April) that he is "a bit more optimistic" that the U.S. will be able to broker a new deal in Copenhagen in December.

But he warned that it is not going to be easy, since many of the potential sticking points for a new global pact still need to be worked out.

"I walk away more optimistic," Stern said at the conclusion of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. "It does not change the fact that the issues are extremely difficult, that it is not going to be easy to reach agreement, or we wouldn't be doing this."

The Washington meeting was meant to pave the way for international talks in Copenhagen in December to forge a follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol, which limits climate-warming greenhouse emissions and expires in 2012.

Results were mixed. Delegates praised the constructive atmosphere and Washington's shift on climate policy, while activists and some European officials said more needed to be done.

The U.S. never signed the Kyoto Protocol, citing the costs to the economy and the lack of participation by developing countries like India and China.

Those two issues continue to loom over negotiations more than a decade later. But the Obama administration has said it is committed to overcoming them in order to reach a deal.

Behind the scenes, two key issues still pose challenges: how much rich countries will pledge to reduce climate-changing pollution and how to raise an estimated $100 billion a year to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

 Representatives of the 16 major world economies participated.  Together with the United States, the represented countries account for 80 percent of the global emissions of heat-trapping gases.

 The United States has called for a 14 percent to 15 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2020 and legislation before Congress would reduce such emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Developing countries and the European Union are pressing the U.S. to make deeper cuts.

But Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations climate change secretariat, said that even the reductions being talked about by industrialized nations aren't enough to avoid rising sea levels, harsher storms and droughts. That would require a 25 percent to 40 percent reduction in global emissions.

Sigmar Gabriel Germany's environment minister said  that the Obama administration's approach to tackling climate change was "the difference between day and night" in comparison with the Bush administration. But said that the Obama administration's goals for limiting carbon emission were not ambitious enough. "It was very clear that the Americans are moving a lot," he told reporters. "Measured by what Europeans believe needs to be done to fight climate change, we're still very far apart from each other."

(Sources: Agency reports, Reuters, AP)