U.S. Climate Envoy Urges ‘Strongest’ Climate Pact (Update1)

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s top climate- change treaty negotiator said nations must seek the “strongest possible agreement” when they gather in Copenhagen next month to discuss a new worldwide accord for reducing pollution.

Leaders should strive for a “real agreement” that goes “well beyond” a declaration to continue talks, Todd Stern, the U.S. special envoy on climate change, told lawmakers today at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington.

Stern, citing remarks last month by Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, said a full, detailed agreement isn’t likely this year. Instead, progress should be made on striking a “political agreement” that addresses core issues like mitigating the effects of climate change and protecting forests.

A full, legal treaty to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol in 2012 should be completed “perhaps next year, or soon as possible,” Stern said today.

Progress toward a new accord is “too slow” and “quite problematic” as developed and developing nations remain at odds over how to best curb greenhouse-gas pollution, Stern said.

The “divide that has run down the center of climate-change discussions for the past 17 years is still I’m afraid alive and well,” Stern said.

‘Dubious Claims’

Some developing nations are being particularly difficult because they are attempting to make “dubious” claims that they “don’t have any responsibility for action now,” Stern said without naming any countries.

Such nations should be “thinking through pragmatic ways to find common ground and start solving the problem,” he said.

Obama may head to Copenhagen empty-handed as the U.S. Senate, which never ratified the Kyoto treaty, may also fail to pass domestic carbon-reduction legislation before the two-week United Nations-led summit starts Dec. 7. The bill has stalled as some lawmakers from industrial states seek additional studies on the economic effects of the provisions.

Obama said yesterday that the U.S. and Europe must “redouble” efforts before the Copenhagen meeting. Climate change also will be among topics on the agenda when Obama meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao later this month.

Timothy Wirth, a former senator from Colorado who also testified before the House panel today, said a renewed focus is needed for U.S.-Chinese cooperation on climate and environmental issues. The countries are the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

Wirth, who heads the United Nations Foundation, a philanthropy established in 1998 with $1 billion from cable- television pioneer Ted Turner, proposed creating a new position within the State Department to oversee U.S.-China relations.

“I think we are missing the boat on that,” said Wirth, who just spent three weeks in Asia. “We have agreements but we are not following up on them.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net.