Obama Climate Envoy Tempers Hope, But UN Cheers Bush's Exit

[Hissyspit]

Source: Washington Post

Obama's climate envoy tempers hopes, but UN cheers Bush's exit

By Craig Whitlock | The Washington Post
March 30, 2009
BERLIN — President Barack Obama's chief climate-change negotiator said Sunday that the U.S. would be "powerfully, fervently engaged" in global talks to reduce carbon emissions but warned of a difficult path ahead.

Todd Stern, a Washington lawyer and former Clinton White House official, said at a UN conference in Bonn, Germany, that despite high expectations, Obama did not have a magic solution for fashioning a global climate-change treaty by year's end. "We all have to do this together. We don't have a magic wand," he told reporters on the sidelines of the conference. "I don't think anybody should be thinking that the U.S. can ride in on a white horse and make it all work."

Stern did not offer specific policy proposals and acknowledged that Obama's negotiating team would be constricted by the domestic political challenge of winning approval from Congress. But his speech was greeted with sustained applause as many UN delegates and environmental groups celebrated the exit of the Bush administration, which had resisted proposals for binding reductions on carbon emissions.

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UN delegates are trying to negotiate a global accord on the reduction of greenhouse gases in time for a December summit in Copenhagen. The accord would replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which called for many industrial nations to cut gas emissions but was rejected by the United States and a handful of other countries. Many UN delegates want major cuts in greenhouse-gas production—25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels—by 2020.

Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-climate-conference_tabmar30,0,3179552.story

[Skittles]

1. Obama on climate control is a breath of fresh air after bush

yes INDEED; it's easy to see how expectations can be exceptionally high