Obama to Offer Firm Pledge on Emissions Cuts in Copenhagen/China Joins U.S. in Pledge of Hard Targets on Emissions

Obama to Offer Firm Pledge on Emissions Cuts in Copenhagen
By JOHN M. BRODER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/26/us/politics/26climate.html?_r=1&ref=global-home


WASHINGTON — President Obama will travel to Copenhagen at the start of the United Nations conference on climate change on Dec. 9 just before flying to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, White House officials said Wednesday.

Mr. Obama, who had not previously committed to making an appearance at the climate conference, had been under considerable pressure from other world leaders and environmental advocates to make the trip as a statement of American seriousness about the climate change negotiations.

Mr. Obama will tell the delegates to the climate conference that the United States intends to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050, officials said. The administration has resisted until now delivering a firm pledge on emissions reductions because Congress has not yet acted on global warming legislation and because several large developing nations, including China and India, have not detailed their own plans.

White House officials said earlier this week that Mr. Obama was now prepared to offer a tentative figure based on the work completed in Congress so far. The United States had never before declared any promise of specific reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Carol Browner, the president’s senior adviser for energy and climate change, said the president hoped that the announcement of the American target would spur other countries to show their cards.

“Obviously we hope other major economies will put forth ambitious action plans of their own,” she said at a White House briefing Wednesday morning.

In June, the House passed a bill calling for greenhouse gas reductions of 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Last month, a Senate committee passed a measure calling for a 20 percent cut, but that is expected to be weakened as the legislation moves through other Senate committees and onto the floor, perhaps next spring.

The United Nations-sponsored climate talks, involving more than 190 nations, are expected to produce a wide-ranging interim political declaration but stop short of proposing a binding international treaty. Delegates are expected to pledge to complete the treaty next year.

Mr. Obama has said recently that he would attend the session if his presence could help lead to a successful outcome. It is significant that he will appear at the beginning rather than at the end of the 12-day meeting. Most major decisions at such environmental forums come at the very end of the process.

In making the announcement, the White House also announced that several cabinet secretaries will speak at the Copenhagen conference to explain actions the United States is taking to address global warming and to urge other nations to step up their efforts.

Among those who will be dispatched to speak in the early days of the meeting are Lisa Jackson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency; Steven Chu, the secretary of energy; Ken Salazar, secretary of interior; Gary Locke, commerce secretary; and Tom Vilsack, secetary of agriculture.

Ms. Browner and Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, will also represent the United States at the talks, the White House said.

Early reaction was generally favorable, but some expressed concern that Mr. Obama’s appearance early in the conference, before other world leaders arrive, may have a limited effect on the outcome.

Keya Chatterjee, director the World Wildlife Fund’s climate program, said she hoped that Mr. Obama would offer more than words at the conference.

“We are pleased that President Obama will be in Copenhagen during the early part of the climate summit,” Ms. Chatterjee said. “It’s important that his words during this important moment convey that the United States intends to make climate change a legislative priority, not simply a rhetorical one.”

She added that if the talks appear to be bogged down, “we hope the President will be willing to return to Copenhagen with the rest of the world’s leaders during the final stages of the negotiations.”

Representative Edward J. Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat who co-sponsored the House climate change legislation, said the president’s embrace of even an imprecise target could spur other nations to make firmer commitments about their own ambitions.

“By putting a serious number for U.S. emission reductions on the table, the president just called the world’s bet and then raised it for our negotiating partners,” Mr. Markey said in a statement. “The president’s attendance at the conference demonstrates his personal commitment to getting a deal that is good for the U.S. and good for our energy future. It’s a powerful statement that the U.S. is back, ready to lead the world.”

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that Mr. Obama’s decision to announce a target was a “game-changer” for the negotiations and restored American credibility on environmental matters.

“By announcing a provisional target, contingent on the support of Congress, the President has defined a path to an international agreement that challenges the developed and developing nations to fulfill their obligations,” Mr. Kerry said. “It lays the groundwork for a broad political consensus at Copenhagen that will strip climate obstructionists here at home of their most persistent charge, that the United States shouldn’t act if other countries won’t join with us.”

This will be Obama’s second trip to Denmark this year. He made short trip to Copenhagen on Oct. 2 to make a vain pitch for 2016 Summer Olympics in Chicago during a meeting of the International Olympic Committee.

Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.






China Joins U.S. in Pledge of Hard Targets on Emissions
By EDWARD WONG and KEITH BRADSHER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/science/earth/27climate.html?hpw


BEIJING — The Chinese government announced Thursday that it had set a target to slow the growth of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a day after the Obama administration set a provisional target for reducing United States emissions.

The Chinese offer, which focuses on energy efficiency, contrasts with the strategy of the United States and most other nations to reduce total emissions. China has resisted demands from American and European negotiators to adopt binding limits on its emissions, arguing that environmental concerns must be balanced with economic growth and that developed countries must first demonstrate a significant commitment to reducing their own emissions.

With its enormous population and breathtaking pace of economic development, China surpassed the United States two years ago as the largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

It was unclear whether the timing of China’s announcement was coincidental, though the Chinese have been preparing an opening position ahead of international talks on climate change in Copenhagen next month. In the past, Beijing has tried to avoid looking as if it has been directly influenced by American decisions.

A senior Obama administration official said that the United States had pressed hard for a public commitment from China and was relieved that it had delivered. But the official, who spoke anonymously because of the delicacy of the matter, called the carbon intensity figure “disappointing,” and said that the administration hoped it represented a gambit that would be negotiated upward at Copenhagen or in subsequent talks.

The Chinese propose, by 2020, to reduce so-called carbon intensity — or the amount of carbon dioxide emitted per unit of economic output — by 40 to 45 percent compared with 2005 levels. By that measure, emissions would still increase, though the rate would slow. That falls far short of what many in Europe and other nations had hoped for — an increase in energy efficiency of at least 50 percent.

Analysts said the Chinese offer might take some of the pressure off the United States, which is offering to reduce the total tonnage of its greenhouse gas emissions “in the range of” 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. But now China seems to be offering almost no deviation from its business-as-usual path, a more troubling development to some.

In a sense, the Chinese offer is less ambitious than the American proposal because China is already well on the way to its target with existing energy efficiency initiatives, while the American offer would require changes in many government policies. American efforts, though, have been mired in Congressional infighting.

Yet the offers by the United States and China both amount to politically safe opening bids in what is likely to be a long, tough process of negotiations on concrete steps that the two countries should take to address climate change.

How that will play out in Copenhagen, where nations will negotiate terms for a post-2012 treaty on reducing emissions, or in follow-up sessions next year, is unclear.

President Obama discussed climate change with Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, when the two met in Beijing on Nov. 16. Officials from the two countries were in talks on the issue under President George W. Bush, but Mr. Obama earlier this year made climate change a top priority in diplomacy between the governments.

China’s arguments about balancing environmental concerns with economic growth resonate with other developing countries like India, and both countries propose slowing the growth of emissions relative to the growth of their economies.

The target announced Thursday “is not so low that China can get to it easily without actual effort, nor is it too high to believe,” said Jin Jiaman, executive director of the Global Environmental Institute, an advocacy group based in Beijing.

China, India and the United States are expected to be crucial players among the 190 or so nations at the meetings in Copenhagen. Leaders have said they do not expect to come to a firm agreement there.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, said Thursday that fixing the target for 2020 was a “voluntary action” taken by the Chinese government “based on our own national conditions,” according to the state-run news agency Xinhua. Chinese officials also announced Thursday that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao would attend the Copenhagen talks.

Michael A. Levi, director of the climate change program at the Council on Foreign Relations, called the target announcement disappointing because it did not move the country much faster along the path it was already on.

“The Department of Energy estimates that existing Chinese policies will already cut carbon intensity by 45 to 46 percent,” Mr. Levi said. “The United States has put an ambitious path for emissions cuts through 2050 on the table. China needs to raise its level of ambition if it is going to match that.” Some environmental advocates have also said that the substance of Mr. Obama’s announcement on Wednesday was weak as well.

Ahead of Copenhagen, China has been trying to deflect criticism by showing that it can make commitments to battling climate change. In September, Mr. Hu said at the United Nations that China would slow its emissions growth by 2020, but drew some criticism by not giving a target at the time.

Both Washington and Beijing face domestic pressure from business and political constituencies pressing their governments not to make energy and environmental pledges that could limit economic growth during a recession. Members of Congress made it abundantly clear to the Obama administration that they would not approve any treaty that did not include a firm promise from major developing countries, particularly China and India, to at least slow the growth of emissions.

Meanwhile, the two countries have come under increasing pressure from European and other nations to bring some sort of commitment to the Copenhagen talks or risk their total collapse. Officials in China and the United States waited until just two weeks before the start of the conference before putting their offers on the table.

Some analysts said China might be unwilling to make larger commitments until Congress passed stalled legislation on emissions reduction targets.

The figures released by the White House on Wednesday were based on targets specified by legislation that passed the House in June but is stalled in the Senate. Congress has never enacted legislation that includes firm emissions limits or ratified an international global warming agreement with binding targets.

“China is in a more comfortable negotiating position,” Yang Ailun, the climate and energy campaign manager for Greenpeace China, said earlier this month. “In fact, every country is in a more comfortable negotiating position than the U.S. right now.”

Edward Wong reported from Beijing, and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong. John M. Broder contributed reporting from Washington, James Kanter from Brussels and Jonathan Ansfield from Mequon, Wis. Zhang Jing contributed research from Beijing.