Monsieur Obama: You could do better on CO2 targets
Another big meeting of climate-change diplomats has come and gone, and once again, journalists are struggling to understand what exactly was accomplished.
Dow Jones in The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2009, 6:54 PM ET
Another emissions issue. (AP)
No concrete changes came from the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate meeting this week in Washington D.C.
At a briefing with journalists, Yvo de Boer, head of the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, caused chortles when – in response to a question about what the diplomats had agreed to – he said “it’s undeniably correct that this was the first meeting.” After the laughter died down, Mr. de Boer said the main achievement had been “to allow people to get comfortable” with one another and set the agenda for more meetings later this year.
But behind the scenes, it is clear that some diplomats are challenging the Obama administration to commit to a more aggressive schedule for cutting U.S. emissions.
On Wednesday, France’s special ambassador in charge of climate change Brice Lalonde, pulled the curtain back a bit further on the closed-door talks.
“The question was, ‘could you do better on the targets’?” Mr. Lalonde said, referring to the Obama administration’s call for returning U.S. emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. The Obama administration has said that cutting emissions by 25% below 1990 levels by 2020 – as some European nations want - isn’t politically doable or even necessary, because steeper reductions could make up for less steep cuts in the early years.
Mr. Lalonde says he and his counterparts are not convinced, thus far, this is the case.
“We said, ‘listen, we understand there can be more than one pathway’,” to cutting emissions, Mr. Lalonde said. “But the later you go, it’s more and more difficult.”
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment