US Pres Obama announces climate change deal with four nations
US Pres Obama announces climate
change deal with four nations
December 18, 2009 9:25 p.m. EST
Copenhagen, Denmark (CNN) -- President Obama announced what he
called a "meaningful and unprecedented" climate change deal with
China and other key nations that was expected to be sealed before the president
headed home from the Copenhagen summit late Friday.
"For the first time in
history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility
to take action to confront the threat of climate change," Obama told
reporters.
The president said he met
with leaders from India, China, Brazil and South Africa, and "that's where
we agreed ... to set a mitigation target to limit warming to no more than 2
degrees Celsius."
It's a nonbinding goal, and
the emissions targets "will not be by themselves sufficient to get to
where we need to get by 2050," Obama said. However, he added that it is a
first step, and that for many countries "this is going to be the first
time in which even voluntary they offered up mitigation targets."
"I think that it was
important to essentially get that shift in orientation moving," Obama
said.
The president said he
believes it's necessary that the countries get to a legally binding treaty, but
said, "If we just waited for that, we would not make any progress."
Earlier, a senior Obama
administration official said, "No country is entirely satisfied with each
element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation
from which to make further progress. We thank the emerging economies for their
voluntary actions and especially appreciate the work and leadership of the
Europeans in this effort."
Critics of the U.N. Climate Change
Conference have said that without specific commitments from the leaders to
actually cut carbon emissions it would be difficult to reach any target.
The deal calls on nations to
submit their "concrete commitments" into an appendix attached to the
agreement to specifically lay out each country's intentions for climate change,
Obama said. Those commitments will be subjected to an international
"consultation and analysis" that will help foster accountability
among the nations.
"It will not be legally
binding, but what it will do is allow for each country to show to the world
what they're doing," Obama said, "and there will be a sense on the
part of each country that we're in this together, and we'll know who is meeting
and who is not meeting, the mutual obligations that have been set forth."
Another senior administration
official had said the precise details of the agreement were still in some flux,
so it was unclear whether the final version would include language that was in
earlier drafts aimed at forcing nations to set legally binding targets for
reducing emissions.
The president worked behind
the scenes on getting a vote among key nations -- including China and India --
to approve the agreement before taking it to the wider group for a vote,
according to the official.
The first
official added Obama would leave Copenhagen shortly after addressing the media
about the tentative deal in order to return to Washington before a major
snowstorm hits.