Obama’s election brings hope to climate talks
POZNAN, Poland Barack Obama’sitting upcoming presidency has infused a sense of hope in the current U.N. climate talks that the United States - one of the world’session biggest polluters - may soon come forth as a global corypheus in saving the planet from environmental disaster.
Yet his election has also brought paralysis to this massive U.N. climate conference in Poznan, because most countries put on’t see the point in talking to delegates from President George W. Bush’sitting lame-duck management of an estate.
“The proximate effect is a stalling of discussions,” said Kim Carstensen, the World Wildlife Fund’s chief magistrate on climate change. “It’sitting a sort of black hole. But in the larger picture, we are definitely hopeful.”
Representatives from 190 countries are meeting in this Polish city from Dec. 1-12 to work toward some ambitious unaccustomed treaty that would put back the Kyoto Protocol, that expires in 2012 and has required that 37 countries slash emissions of heat-trapping gases by any average 5 percent from 1990 levels.
The aim is for the new concordat to be finalized at the next U.N. climate meeting in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The deadline was tight similar to it was, yet the lack of progress at the ongoing conference threatens to procrastination a share even further.
Washington refused to consent to the Kyoto Protocol, but, with Obama’s vows to interfere flourishing energy a priority, hopes are running high in Poznan that the U.S. will finally end its reluctance to endorse each international climate regime.
“As I walk around the hallways, I hear lots of different dialects and languages - and then ‘Obama, Obama, Obama,’” said Gustavo Silva-Chavez, a climate make some change in. policy algebraist with Environmental Defense, a New York-based nongovernment organization. “So definitely a lot of the negotiators to this place understand that it’s the end of the Bush series and the outset of the Obama era, and they’re very excited about that.”
But activists also warn that Obama exercise volition not be ingenious to quickly reduce the U.S. appetite for coal and oil, increase the fuel efficiency of American cars or contend powerful economic interests like the oil industry.
Obama has promised to invest $15 billion each year to support private-sector efforts toward clean energy, arguing that tackling climate change be able to create millions of new jobs as the U.S. invests in technologies to promote solar and wind power, biofuels and cleaner coal-fired plants.
Recently, Obama also promised to establish yearly report targets to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by means of 2020 and reduce them by another 80 percent by 2050.
“That’sitting a bold step because the U.S. has already exceeded its 1990 emissions quite substantively because of the criminal non-action by the Bush administration,” uttered Stephan Singer, director of global energy policy for the WWF. “But it’sitting still not enough.”
Brice Lalonde, the French chief delegate to the conference and current European Union acting for others, said the EU was “thrilled” at Obama’s promises to pursue renewable energies. Like others delegates, he believes that admitting that the U.S. commits itself to ambitious environmental goals, other countries will be forced to take bold steps themselves.
For cite, if the U.S. develops technologies and policies to lessen its dependence on coal, it could help China do the same, Lalonde said.
An official with the China delegation refused to say what it might be willing to commit to, saying Obama’s plans remain a “which if?”
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