U.S. Stands By Greenhouse Emissions Pledge for Cancun Talks, Stern Says
The Obama administration will stand by a pledge to cut greenhouse gases and doesn’t plan to provide details about how the goal will be met for climate talks in Mexico this year, U.S. negotiator Todd Stern said.
The U.S. at the Cancun negotiations will reaffirm its plan to reduce emissions tied to global warming about 17 percent by 2020, Stern told reporters today after a meeting of the world’s largest polluting nations in New York.
More than 190 nations are to meet in Mexico in December after talks in Copenhagen last year failed to produce a legally binding agreement to fight climate change. Nations are asking the U.S. how it will achieve its goal given that legislation to require such cuts is stalled in Congress, Stern said.
The U.S. position on disclosing its plans is in line with nations that also decline to provide a “bill of particulars” in discussing emissions reductions, said Stern, who is President Barack Obama’s lead climate treaty negotiator.
“It’s never been the practice,” he said.
The U.S. has many tools available to force reductions, including greenhouse-gas regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, Stern said.
Stern said Congress will pass “meaningful” legislation to combat climate change, though he “can’t say exactly when.”
A measure requiring a mandatory cap on U.S. greenhouse-gas pollution passed the House of Representatives in 2009. The Senate bill stalled and last month Democratic leaders said lawmakers would scrap plans to pursue a bill this year. Last year, when Obama made the 2020 pledge, the U.S. said the reduction depended on action in Congress.
Progress Important
The U.S. and China were among 17 major generators of greenhouse gases at today’s meeting. Participants agreed it is important to make progress in Cancun, Stern said. The main focus of the talks will be mitigation, transparency, finance, adaptation and deforestation, he said.
Stern said that unlike Copenhagen, “nobody is anticipating or expecting in any way a legal treaty to be done in Cancun this year.”
“Expectations are not too high but also not low,” he said. Nations will try “to make significant progress but on the other hand not to have expectations to do things that aren’t realistic at this point.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in New York at kchipman@bloomberg.net; Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at jefstathiou@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Geimann at sgeimann@bloomberg.net
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