US shares 'common purpose' at G8 climate talks

Friday, April 24, 2009 at 6:33 PM Posted by Beijing News


The US delegate to Group of Eight climate change talks Thursday offered a "message of common purpose" from President Barack Obama after years of American disengagement on environmental issues.

"I bring from President Obama a message of hope, his message of change, a message of common purpose for the environment," said Lisa Jackson, head of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

"It's a good feeling to know that the world is waiting to welcome the US to the table and is not too frustrated by the lack of leadership in the past," Jackson told reporters.

"We have many mutual environmental challenges before us, not the least of which is climate change," said Jackson, the first African-American to head the EPA.

"The United States fully acknowledges the urgency and complexity" of the issues, she added.

Earlier Thursday, delegates to the talks said Obama's green overtures had spurred optimism for a landmark deal on global warming later this year.

"The fact that President Obama has committed to work with zeal... towards Copenhagen is very important," EU Environment Commissioner Dimas Stavros told a news conference.

The 'G8-Plus' talks are among several forums on the way to a UN meeting in Copenhagen in December aimed at sealing an international pact for curbing greenhouse gases beyond 2012.

That is when the Kyoto Treaty -- rejected by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush -- is set to expire and be replaced by the Copenhagen deal.

The Bush administration maintained that Kyoto would be too costly for US businesses to implement and called on developing countries to do more.

Czech Environment Minister Martin Bursik, who met the US leader in Prague earlier this month, said Thursday: "We are on the way to Copenhagen.

"President Obama told me that their chief negotiator Todd Stern will go to Copenhagen with the strongest possible mandate," said Bursik, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency.

"This should open the doors and get us out of the deadlock and get China and India on board," Bursik said.

The United States and China are the world's top two carbon polluters, but US per capita emissions are four to five times those of China and about double those of Europe.

The G8 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The talks have been joined by environment ministers of Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea.

A native of New Orleans, Louisiana, Jackson said her octogenarian mother lost her home in the 2005 hurricane that ravaged some 200,000 homes.

Climate change is a growing threat to biodiversity at a time when a quarter of all animal and plant species may be at risk of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.





Clary

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