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November 30, 2009

Obama to Attend Copenhagen Climate Talks; U.S. & China Outline Emissions Cuts
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The White House has announced President Obama will briefly attend the UN
climate summit in Copenhagen next week, near the beginning of the
two-week conference. Obama will stop in Copenhagen on Wednesday December
9 while on his way to pick up his Nobel prize in Oslo. Obama is expected
to outline a plan for the United States to set a provisional greenhouse
gas emissions target for 2020 “in the range of 17 percent below 2005
levels. Meanwhile China has pledged to reduce its "carbon intensity” by
2020 but it has not promised to make any cuts to its actual carbon
emissions. China is vowing to reduce the measure of carbon dioxide
emissions per unit of production by as much as 45 percent by 2020. Yvo
De Boer, the UN’s top climate official, said the U.S., China and other
nations must take action in Copenhagen.

Yvo De Boer: “In just eleven days the eyes of the world will be trained
on Copenhagen to witness what I believe will be an historic turning
point in the fight against climate change. And there is no plan B for
Copenhagen, only plan A and plan A stands for action. Unseasonable
storms in Asia and Latin America and protracted drought in Africa are
already seriously harming people in the developing world. Success at
Copenhagen will put the world on a safe, low-emissions growth path. It
will open opportunities for clean growth, allowing developing countries
to leapfrog the polluting technologies of the rich, industrialized
world.”

Yvo De Boer also said the United States and other wealthy nations have a
key role to play at the Copenhagen talks.

Yvo De Boer: “Rich countries must put at least ten billion dollars a
year on the table to kick-start immediate action up to 2012. And they
must list what each country will provide and how funds will be raised to
deliver very large, stable and predictable finance going into the future
without constantly having to renegotiate those sums every few years.
Particularly the more than 100 least developed countries are entirely
dependent on finance to adapt and reduce their emissions.”



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