Deal-Breaker for Climate-Change Treaty May Be Obama’s Congress

Now while most politicians will say and do almost anything to get elected, Obama was original for his sincerity. Now that he has been in office for some time, many groups from the left wing: pro choice advocates to anti-war activists to the gay/lesbian community are calling him on his campaign promises.

Ahead of the much anticipated Copenhagen Summit, climate change is on the table yet ironically it’s the American Congress that is most likely to stymie any real action on climate change in this upcoming round of talks to protect US businesses. We’re hoping that Obama will make a stand for the betterment of global climate change and stand toe to toe with Gore, another Nobel recipient on this important issue.

green team

Deal-Breaker for Climate-Change Treaty May Be Obama’s Congress
www.bloomberg.com
by Alex Morales and Kim Chipman

When Barack Obama was elected president, he was heralded as a possible savior for climate- treaty talks that had dragged on for years while George W. Bush rejected limits on U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions.

“America is back” at the United Nations negotiating table, Democratic SenatorJohn Kerry declared after the November election. Danish climate ministerConnie Hedegaard said U.S. emissions policy moved forward 35 years overnight.

Instead, Obama may send empty-handed envoys in December to the table in Copenhagen where 192 countries will try to assign emissions reductions because Congress has given him no mandate. With the European Union, Japan and Australia ready to pledge cuts of more than 20 percent only if other nations follow suit, the stage is set for promises to collapse.

“How can we expect other major players to move their position until they know that in the end the U.S. is also going to deliver?” Hedegaard, chairwoman of the UN talks running from Dec. 7-18, said in an interview.

The possible domino effect, along with a continuing split between the U.S. and China, erode chances for a strong treaty, negotiators and political scientists say.

“It is unlikely that an agreement which would be meaningful is going to be finalized” in the Danish capital, Robert Stavins, director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in an interview.

When Obama picks up his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in December, he’ll be an hour’s flight from where more than 10,000 envoys, UN officials and lobbyists will be meeting to conclude an agreement on slowing climate change, a challenge the president has said the U.S. will “lead the world” in tackling.

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