US efforts on climate insufficient: experts
AFP in Yahoo News, Wed May 13, 5:56 am ET
AFP/File – Steam rises from cooling towers at a power station, 2006. US plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions …
BRUSSELS (AFP) – US plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissionsfall short of what is needed, climate change experts said after talks with the European Commission in Brussels.
"The US objectives are not strong enough, they have to make their commitments stronger," said Nicholas Stern, a British former world bank chief economist whose 2006 Stern Review put the economic case for green policies.
Lord Stern voiced optimism that the entry onto the world stage of US President Barack Obama could only help.
"I feel optimistic," echoed Rajendra Pachauri, chair of theIntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.
"There will be a targetable effort from the part of the US," for the keyinternational climate change talks in Copenhagen in December, he added.
"The US will catch up," both experts said.
Obama has sharply changed US direction on climate change and vowed action despite the global economic crisis, hoping to create new jobs in green technology.
His predecessor George W. Bush was the main holdout from the Kyoto Protocol, which he said was too costly and unfair as the landmark environmental treaty makes no requirements of rapidly growing developing nations.
The US has agreed to cut its emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, while Europe has pledged to cut its own emissions by at least 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and 30 percent if other advanced economies follow suit.
A more ambitious Democratic-led proposal is now close to getting approval in the US Congress.
The Copenhagen conference is meant to lay out global action after 2012, when Kyoto's obligations expire.
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