nov. 1 missed this until now ...on talks for today's un funding report:
Stern declined to comment in detail on the closed-door
deliberations of the group. But he said, "There are some things
that are proposed that we just don't think are good ideas."
+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
U.S. Plays Conflicted Role in Global Climate Debate
2010-11-01 13:38:24.881 GMT
By Juliet Eilperin
Nov. 1 (Washington Post) -- As the next round of U.N.
climate talks approaches this month in Cancun, Mexico, the Obama
administration finds itself in an awkward position: pushing its
enduring commitment to bold climate action even as the prospects
for comprehensive legislation have evaporated at home.
The atmosphere is very different from a year ago, when U.S.
negotiators headed to Copenhagen touting the recent success of a
House-passed climate bill. Now that legislation has died in the
Senate, and with candidates poised to win this week who are more
likely to focus on immediate economic concerns than on long-term
environmental and energy ones, these constraints are shaping U.S.
climate diplomacy.
Administration officials might not be able to deliver on all
the climate assistance they have promised to give poor countries
by 2012 and have questioned some financing proposals linked to
longer-term foreign aid. They are considering whether to
challenge China's renewable energy subsidies as violating
international trade rules, and have objected to Europe's plan to
force airlines operating there to pay for their carbon emissions.
"The U.S. is conflicted," said Angela Anderson, program
director for the U.S. Climate Action Network.
Some foreign politicians deliver a harsher assessment.
Reinhard Hans Btikofer, a member of the European Parliament who
co-chaired the German Green Party until last year, said in an
interview, "The yardstick I would measure the Obama
administration against has been set by the president himself,
when he said in the early days of his administration he wanted to
make the United States a leader in international climate policy.
That is obviously a test in which the U.S. is failing, by far."
As delegates from around the world wait to see whether
negotiations starting Nov. 29 in Cancun produce a meaningful
result, U.S. special climate envoy Todd Stern made it clear that
the United States intends to pursue as hard a bargain as it did
last year in Copenhagen. As part of the Copenhagen Accord,
industrialized nations pledged to make greenhouse gas cuts and
give billions to poor countries over the next decade, in exchange
for major developing countries agreeing to make their cuts in a
transparent way, where other countries could monitor and verify
their carbon emissions.
"I don't accept the notion that because we didn't get our
legislation passed, therefore we should show flexibility on
transparency. There's no linkage," Stern said in an interview.
"We're not playing that way."
But Connie Hedegaard, the European commissioner for climate
action, said other countries are using U.S. lawmakers' refusal to
adopt binding limits on carbon dioxide to back away from the
Copenhagen Accord, the deal forged in last year's U.N. talks.
"Of course, from a European perspective it's regrettable the
administration could not get legislation through the Senate," she
said. "That makes it easier for other parties to hide behind the
back of the United States."
Last year, administration officials assumed that a plan to
cap U.S. greenhouse gases and allow emitters to trade carbon
allowances would help funnel millions to developing countries for
climate projects such as preserving tropical forests; now that
approach is politically dead. And even the administration's
ability to provide direct climate assistance to poor nations over
the next two years is in doubt because a looming budget battle
with Republicans could freeze U.S. foreign aid at this year's
levels, or even cut it.
"That's something people I talk to in other capitals are
very aware of," said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy
for the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group.
In a preliminary U.N. climate meeting in Tianjin, China,
last month, Chinese negotiators questioned whether industrialized
nations such as the United States would come through on their
promises for international climate aid. And the two nations are
on the brink of a trade fight over renewable energy: Last month,
the Obama administration said it would investigate whether the
United Steelworkers union was justified in charging that China's
clean-energy subsidies violated international trade rules.
The United States also has also joined Canada and Mexico in
questioning whether the European Union has the right to start
forcing foreign airlines flying to Europe in 2012 to pay for
their carbon emissions as part of the E.U.'s carbon trading
system without the "mutual agreement" of the countries where
these operators originate.
A new dispute could flare up at the end of the week, when an
international task force charged with showing how rich nations
can mobilize $100 billion by 2020 for climate assistance will
outline options for generating that money. Lawrence H. Summers,
who chairs the White House National Economic Council, has served
in the group and questioned some of the proposals, including
imposing a new fee on some financial transactions.
Stern declined to comment in detail on the closed-door
deliberations of the group. But he said, "There are some things
that are proposed that we just don't think are good ideas."
The United States is not backing away from the pledge Obama
made last year to cut the nation's overall emissions 17 percent
compared with 2005 levels, although negotiators from developing
countries have asked the administration to provide a more
detailed accounting on how it will accomplish that goal. "I'd
like the United States to put more on the table in terms of
government performance on climate change," said Brazil's
environment minister, Izabella Teixeira.
Stern said the United States has no plans to do that. "We're
standing behind what we put in last year," he said. "If we don't
get there through comprehensive legislation, there's other ways
to get there."
Critics of the United States, such as Bolivia's U.N.
ambassador, Pablo Solon, are already preparing to blame
Washington for derailing the upcoming talks. "If the U.S. doesn't
make any positive move before Cancun, and during Cancun, we will
have a big failure in Cancun," he said. "We're going to see how
politics in one state is going to define the entire future of
humankind. And that's something we cannot accept."
But others, such as Norwegian Minister of the Environment
and International Development Erik Solheim, said negotiators from
all sides will have to recognize the current political realities
in the United States and elsewhere, and strike the most
meaningful compromise they can.
"The house cannot be built in one day," Solheim said. "The
house has to be built floor by floor."
-0- Nov/01/2010 13:38 GMT
