Patrice Novotny Yahoo News 13 Feb 09;
TOKYO (AFP) – Top UN and EU climate officials said Friday they saw a "sea change" in the United States under President Barack Obama, saying it showed a willingness to engage on global warming in their first meeting.
Representatives of 22 nations held two days of informal talks in Tokyo this week to pave the way for a December meeting in Copenhagen, which is supposed to approve a new post-Kyoto international climate treaty.
"It has been a night and day change in terms of the US position on this topic," Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief, told a news conference.
"President Obama's stance on climate change represents a sea change in the position of the US. President Obama has indicated that he will seriously address this issue."
His remarks were echoed by Artur Runge-Metzger, the top EU negotiator on climate change.
He said the Tokyo meeting was his first contact with US climate officials since Obama's inauguration last month, although no new political appointees attended the talks.
"I assure you that there is a sea change in the tone of the new US administration," Runge-Metzger said.
"There is a willingness to engage on the issue of climate change and to show leadership and the best sign was that many of the senior positions on climate change have already been filled in the Obama administration," he said.
The administration has appointed as its climate negotiator Todd Stern, a veteran of the talks that led to the landmark Kyoto Protocol which for the first time required nations to cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
Former US president George W. Bush snubbed the Kyoto treaty in 2001 as one of his first acts in office, saying it was too costly for the world's largest economy.
Obama has also made a sharp change of gear by signing measures to encourage production of fuel-efficient cars and vowing US leadership in the fight against global warming.
The Copenhagen meeting is meant to set commitments for the period after 2012, when Kyoto's obligations expire.
"I have the impression that discussions are beginning to develop in a way that we can now picture the type of progress that can be achieved in Copenhagen," said a Japanese official who attended the closed-door talks.
Under Bush, the United States resisted calls to set more binding targets for emission reductions.
Obama has pressed ahead with plans to address climate change despite a worsening global economic slowdown.
De Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the world should be more creative in generating revenue.
"Under the current economic circumstances, it's difficult for any finance minister in any country to come and say, 'Please, give me more money against international climate change'," he said.
One idea, said de Boer, was that nations could agree to use part of the revenue from the growing trade in carbon emission rights to fund international cooperation.
In a system set up under the Kyoto Protocol, nations or companies that emit too much carbon can buy credits from others that have brought their levels down, therefore creating an economic incentive to fight global warming.
