Fifteen months ago, U.S. negotiators were booed at at Bali, Indonesia, that U.S. when they threatened to veto an accord laying down a two-year negotiating process to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Yesterday, the U.S.A was applauded at a 175-nation U.N. meeting in Bonn as Todd Stern pledged to “make up for lost time” in reaching a global agreement on climate change.
Although America itself cannot provide the solution to global warming, Stern acknowledged that there can be no solution without America. Indeed, President Obama has set aside $80 billion in his economic stimulus package for green energy and he has promised $150 billion for research over 10 years. He wants to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by about 16 percent from current levels to take them back to 1990 levels by 2020 and to 80 percent below by 2050.
Todd Stern also praised efforts by countries like China to reign in their carbon emissions, but said global warming “requires a global response” and that rapidly developing economies like China “must join together” with the industrial world to solve the problem. (AP)
