US more optimistic about climate deal after talks

Dina Cappiello, Associated Press Yahoo News 28 Apr 09;

WASHINGTON – The top U.S. negotiator 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.

Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy for climate change, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday 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 is the first of a series of three called for by President Barack Obama. The goal is to help broker a replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty that expires in 2012, and to build support for the development of pollution-reducing technologies.

The U.S. never signed onto Kyoto, 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.

At the two-day meeting, the administration showed participants it was serious.

Representatives of the 16 major economies present heard presentations from a host of top-level officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Energy Secretary Steven Chu and White House science adviser John Holdren. Together with the United States, the represented countries account for 80 percent of the global emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Late Monday afternoon they attended a reception at the White House with Obama.

"We come out of it more encouraged about the commitment of all the participants, particularly the United States," said Joao Vale de Almeida, the head of the European Union delegation. "The most important change as we started this meeting was of course the position of the United States. This means the U.S. is fully back in the debate and because of that we are back in business in terms of finding a global solution to a global challenge."

But 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.

The Obama administration 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.

Stern said these were the two numbers on the table for the U.S.

"What I said to the delegates is that you effectively got a United States number there. It is somewhere in that range," Stern said.

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.

"It wasn't all sweetness," de Boer said. "Those numbers are still very far from what the scientific community tells us" needs to be done.

Germany's environment minister said Tuesday that the Obama administration's approach to tackling climate change was "the difference between day and night" in comparison with the Bush administration. But Sigmar Gabriel said that the Obama administration's goals for limiting carbon emission were not ambitious enough.

He said the U.S. needed to commit to bigger cuts than than the administration or congressional Democrats have indicated they are considering "The ambitions of the United States targets are too low," he said.

The meeting never got around to addressing the financing issue. They ran out of time.

The next meeting is scheduled for May in Paris.

Envoys more optimistic for climate treaty
Shaun Tandon Yahoo News 29 Apr 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Top climate envoys said they were more optimistic about sealing a global warming deal this year after a US-led meeting of major economies, but they sparred on the level of their commitments.

US President Barack Obama, who champions aggressive action against global warming, invited negotiators from 17 other major economies including developing powers such as China and India to meet in Washington.

The talks came as the clock ticks to a December meeting in Copenhagen that is meant to approve a new global treaty to slow down the planet's rising temperatures.

"I come out of this meeting a bit more optimistic," Todd Stern, the chief US negotiator on climate change, told reporters.

Stern acknowledged that much of the conversation was general in scope but said it was not a "head-butting exercise."

"Believe me, I'm not trying to oversell," Stern said. "I would not downplay or underestimate the difficulty of getting an agreement in Copenhagen."

His remarks were echoed by German Environmental Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who said: "I'm quite optimistic that we will succeed in December."

But he said that emerging countries still did not want to make binding commitments on how much they will cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming.

"Today there was no movement in this respect. It still is an open question if the emerging countries are ready for binding agreements," Gabriel said.

Developing nations charge in turn that they cannot come up with firm targets until they know the position of the United States.

Obama, who personally greeted all the envoys, has sharply changed US direction on climate change and vowed action despite the global economic crisis, hoping to create new jobs in green technology.

Obama's 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.

French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, while hailing the Washington talks as "constructive," said that Obama's reduction targets did not go far enough.

"It's a situation where we're so happy at the change in attitude (after Bush) and at the same time that should not lower ambitions," Borloo said.

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.

The Copenhagen conference is meant to lay out global action after 2012, when Kyoto's obligations expire.

More than 180 nations agreed at a major conference in December 2007 in Bali, Indonesia that the next treaty should involve the entire world.

Marcelo Furtado, executive director of Greenpeace Brazil, said that wealthy nations have not yet made enough commitments for some developing states to feel comfortable to take strong action.

"Most countries are either still keeping their cards to themselves or in some cases they actually don't have any cards to show -- they're just watching the game and making their position as negotiations go by," Furtado told reporters.

The US negotiator Stern said that while negotiators did not dwell on past US policy, "there's a lot of sense of appreciation and relief, frankly, that they're dealing with a very different kettle of fish."

The talks involved Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Commission, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, the United States, Denmark and the United Nations.

They will meet again in late May in Paris and at a location to be decided in June.

The format was set up by the Bush administration and originally met opposition from some developing nations and environmentalists who feared Washington was trying to bypass UN-led negotiations.