2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Clinton: "I feel sorry sometimes to the young people who believe [Sanders]" [View all]karynnj
(59,498 posts)They did NOT lead to the Paris Agreement. In fact, John Kerry, when talking to Obama about the job of Secretary of State was said to have said he wanted climate change to be a signature issue -- just as woman's issues were for HRC. He was told that the administration held out little hope for any diplomatic break through on climate change.
Note that at one debate, HRC spoke of hunting down the Chinese. In another she spoke of TELLING the Chinese what they had to do. Kerry, on the other hand, spoke of how on his first trip to China with Obama's permission, he spoke to Chinese people involved on the issue he long knew from his own role in earlier climate change summits - especially the Bali conference. He spoke of listening to them and making a case that the US and China could do something together on this. The Chinese delegation on this was even invited to some talks at Kerry's Boston house.
Ban Ki Moon actually spoke of how some of the ideas from the Bali Conference, which Kerry was very helpful - enough that the Bush delegation actually thanked him at a SFRC meeting on the conference, were the basis of the approach used in Paris. This was the idea that different countries all set goals that can be different given the circumstances.
I have no doubt that both HRC and Bernie believe in climate change and that they will work to move forward in fighting it. However, the Copenhagen conference was a failure - and a major disappointment as the hope expressed in Bali was that with a supportive American President - and both McCain and Obama - were willing to work to stop climate change - the world could move forward. There are MANY people who deserve credit for there being a Paris Agreement, but the SoS who deserves that credit is John Kerry. Kerry worked on this issue throughout his entire career and did FAR FAR more as Secretary of State than Clinton did.