Advantage Obama in US climate change policy
Barack Obama: "Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history."
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By Adam Leveridge. |  |
Tuesday, 08, Dec 2009 01:29
By Matthew Champion.
A day before Barack Obama makes an appearance in Copenhagen, the US has moved closer to legislating against greenhouse gas emissions.
As the UN climate change conference opened in the Danish capital yesterday the US environmental protection agency (EPA) declared that emissions threatened the public health and welfare of the American people.
The move could pave the way for the White House to impose compulsory emission reductions without Congress. A clean energy bill has already passed through the House of Representatives but climate change sceptics in the Senate have so far resisted.
EPA administrator Lisa Jackson told journalists yesterday that a clear line in the sand had been drawn.
Under measures she discussed emission levels in the US would be reduced by 950 million metrics tonnes and 1.8 billion fewer barrels of oil would be used.
Speaking to the UN in September, Barack Obama insisted his plans for a green stimulus, including a turn towards renewable energy sources and end of reliance on foreign oil, must take place.
"Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history for, if we fail to meet it boldly, swiftly and together, we risk consigning future generations to an irreversible catastrophe," he said.
The steps being taken in the US have been warmly welcomed in Copenhagen, where delegates from 192 countries are closely watching the actions of Washington and Beijing more than any other.
Yvo de Boer, head of the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), told the Reuters news agency: "This is very significant in the sense that if the Senate fails to adopt legislation [on emissions], then the administration will have the authority to regulate."
But White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said there were no plans to rush through legislation via the EPA. He told reporters the timing of the EPA announcement and the start of the Copenhagen conference was a coincidence.
Elsewhere, Gordon Brown has called on world leaders to put their cards on the table.
The EU has pledged to cut emissions to 20 per cent lower than 1990 levels by 2020 but the prime minister wants more to be achieved in Copenhagen.
"It's not enough to say, 'I may do this, I might do that, possibly I'll do this'. I want to create a situation in which the European Union is persuaded to go to 30 per cent," he told the Guardian.
"We've got to make countries recognise that they have to be as ambitious as they say they want to be."
President Obama is due to attend the UN conference on Wednesday, a day before travelling to Oslo to collect his Nobel peace prize.