Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President Barack Obama and China’s President Hu Jintao will address the United Nations today on climate change amid doubt that an international accord on global warming can be reached this year.
“Negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment,” European Commission President Jose Barroso said yesterday of the treaty talks set to culminate in Copenhagen at a United Nations-led meeting in December.
The U.S. and China, the biggest greenhouse gas polluters, are stuck on issues such as how much aid rich nations should give poor ones to deal with climate change and how much industrialized economies should pledge to reduce emissions. Divisions among developed and developing nations make a completed deal by December unlikely, said Eileen Claussen, head of the nonprofit Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.
“I don’t see us coming to a full, final, ratifiable agreement in Copenhagen,” Claussen said in an interview.
There’s too little time to narrow the differences between countries before the December deadline, and even an interim agreement outlining principles of a deal will require stepped-up efforts, Barroso told reporters yesterday in New York.
“I’ve been in global negotiations like this, and I tell you that 80 days before usually we were much closer to the outcome then we are now,” Barroso said. “So if we don’t move this week there is a real risk that we miss the opportunity in Copenhagen.”
Some political leaders said they were optimistic that Hu will offer new initiatives in his speech to the UN’s climate conference today that will create momentum.
Hu Speech Important
“If we and China can come to an agreement, and we in Congress will recognize that, I believe the rest of this is just going to move very, very rapidly because everybody else is going to come on board,” U.S. Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a panel discussion in New York yesterday. “So what President Hu says tomorrow is very important.”
The U.S. House has approved climate-change legislation backed by Obama. The Senate has yet to act.
More than 190 nations are negotiating an accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set emissions limits on industrialized countries that expire in 2012. Neither the U.S. nor China is part of the Kyoto agreement. China is exempt as a developing country. The U.S. under President George W. Bush rejected the pact over concern that it would harm the economy and because lawmakers objected that China wasn’t included.
The European Union says binding targets are needed to keep the increase in global temperatures to within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial times, a target that averts the worst effects of climate change.
Changing the Dynamic
Obama’s top climate negotiator, Todd Stern, told reporters yesterday in New York that progress in discussions leading up to Copenhagen is “slower than we would like.”
“We need to change that dynamic and we can, so long as all of us do our part,” he said.
Stern told reporters last week that the goal in December is to get the “most ambitious, most far-reaching accord” possible. “And to the extent that there’s some things that need to be completed after that, then that will happen,” he said.
Kim Carstensen, head of the World Wildlife Federation’s global climate initiative, said “it’s “clear we aren’t going to get everything in Copenhagen,” and leaders should work on their “political messaging” so the gathering won’t be seen as a failure.
Specifics also had to be worked out after the 1997 climate meeting in Kyoto, he said in an interview.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is overseeing today’s climate forum, urged advocates for stronger climate policies to put the “heat” on leaders.
“We must seal the deal in Copenhagen,” he said yesterday. “This is a political and moral imperative for all of us, particularly those leaders.”
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.
“Negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment,” European Commission President Jose Barroso said yesterday of the treaty talks set to culminate in Copenhagen at a United Nations-led meeting in December.
The U.S. and China, the biggest greenhouse gas polluters, are stuck on issues such as how much aid rich nations should give poor ones to deal with climate change and how much industrialized economies should pledge to reduce emissions. Divisions among developed and developing nations make a completed deal by December unlikely, said Eileen Claussen, head of the nonprofit Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia.
“I don’t see us coming to a full, final, ratifiable agreement in Copenhagen,” Claussen said in an interview.
There’s too little time to narrow the differences between countries before the December deadline, and even an interim agreement outlining principles of a deal will require stepped-up efforts, Barroso told reporters yesterday in New York.
“I’ve been in global negotiations like this, and I tell you that 80 days before usually we were much closer to the outcome then we are now,” Barroso said. “So if we don’t move this week there is a real risk that we miss the opportunity in Copenhagen.”
Some political leaders said they were optimistic that Hu will offer new initiatives in his speech to the UN’s climate conference today that will create momentum.
Hu Speech Important
“If we and China can come to an agreement, and we in Congress will recognize that, I believe the rest of this is just going to move very, very rapidly because everybody else is going to come on board,” U.S. Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a panel discussion in New York yesterday. “So what President Hu says tomorrow is very important.”
The U.S. House has approved climate-change legislation backed by Obama. The Senate has yet to act.
More than 190 nations are negotiating an accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set emissions limits on industrialized countries that expire in 2012. Neither the U.S. nor China is part of the Kyoto agreement. China is exempt as a developing country. The U.S. under President George W. Bush rejected the pact over concern that it would harm the economy and because lawmakers objected that China wasn’t included.
The European Union says binding targets are needed to keep the increase in global temperatures to within 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) of pre-industrial times, a target that averts the worst effects of climate change.
Changing the Dynamic
Obama’s top climate negotiator, Todd Stern, told reporters yesterday in New York that progress in discussions leading up to Copenhagen is “slower than we would like.”
“We need to change that dynamic and we can, so long as all of us do our part,” he said.
Stern told reporters last week that the goal in December is to get the “most ambitious, most far-reaching accord” possible. “And to the extent that there’s some things that need to be completed after that, then that will happen,” he said.
Kim Carstensen, head of the World Wildlife Federation’s global climate initiative, said “it’s “clear we aren’t going to get everything in Copenhagen,” and leaders should work on their “political messaging” so the gathering won’t be seen as a failure.
Specifics also had to be worked out after the 1997 climate meeting in Kyoto, he said in an interview.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, who is overseeing today’s climate forum, urged advocates for stronger climate policies to put the “heat” on leaders.
“We must seal the deal in Copenhagen,” he said yesterday. “This is a political and moral imperative for all of us, particularly those leaders.”
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.
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