As International Pressure Mounts, Obama Sets U.S. Emissions Reduction Target for 2020
December 3, 2009 Kyriaki (Sandy) Venetis 
Graphic courtesy of webwombat.com.
Possibly resulting from ongoing criticisms from the international community, most notably from members of the European Union, the United States has finally set an emissions reduction target for 2020.
The White House has both confirmed that President Barack Obama will be attending United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on Dec. 9, and that the U.S. will work to reduce emissions to “17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020.”
While hopes for a large-scale binding climate change agreement in Copenhagen seen to be fading with the U.S. Congress having yet to pass a climate bill, and other major industrialized countries refusing to make firm commitments of their own, there is a bright spot in that attention is being drawn to the issue, and smaller scale partnerships are beginning to take shape.
Last week, Obama and India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh agreed to launch a Clean Energy and Climate Initiative. It will include cooperation between the two countries in the areas of “wind and solar energy, second generation bio-fuels, unconventional gas, energy efficiency, and clean coal technologies, including carbon capture and storage.”
The concept of “clean coal” is commonly considered a myth by environmental advocates, but any improvement to the processing that lowers its pollution output by any level is a plus.
With regards to the U.S.-India partnership, Obama said last week in a joint press conference that, “Prime Minister Singh and I made important progress. We reaffirmed that an agreement in Copenhagen should be comprehensive and cover all the issues under negotiation. We agreed to stand by these commitments with full transparency through appropriate processes as to their implementation.”
Elaborating more on the partnership, Singh said, “Both President Obama and I have agreed on the need for a substantive and comprehensive outcome, which would cover mitigation, adaptation, finance, and technology. We reaffirmed our intention to work to this end, bilaterally and with all other countries.
“We welcome the president’s commitment to a major program for [the] promotion of renewable energy, and I drew his attention to India’s own ambitious national action plan on climate change, which has eight national missions covering both mitigation and adaptation. I underlined India’s desire to benefit from clean and energy-efficient technologies from the United States.”
While world leaders are making speeches full of promises, others are taking a more sober view of the overall global political tapestry.
Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center On Global Climate Change, released a statement saying, “In announcing a provisional 2020 emissions target, the White House is making a strong and credible offer consistent with the emerging bipartisan consensus in Congress.
“However, in putting numbers on the table in Copenhagen, the United States must be very clear about what is needed in a final agreement next year in order for this target to become binding. A new treaty must establish clear and binding commitments for all major economies, strong support for developing countries, and a robust verification system to clearly determine whether countries are complying with their commitments.”
Additional U.S-India Partnership Article
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