Green Options

This post was written by Stacy Feldman (reporting from Barcelona, Spain), and originally published at SolveClimate.

The United States must deliver concrete mid-term greenhouse gas reduction targets by next month or it will destroy efforts to achieve a framework for a global climate change deal in Copenhagen, United Nations climate chief Yvo de Boer said Monday as a week of international talks on global warming began in Barcelona.

“I do not think the international community will accept an agreement that lacks clarity from the U.S. on targets,” de Boer said.

The Barcelona talks are the final five days of two years of global negotiations leading up to the crucial UN Climate Change Conference, from Dec. 7-18, in Copenhagen. De Boer’s worst fear now is that the Copenhagen conference will end with a lack of clarity on key issues and lead to a protracted political standoff.

“Negotiations must stop at Copenhagen. Otherwise negotiations will drag on when only the technical work should be going on,” he said.

A decision by the Obama administration to put a concrete 2020 target on the table could be the game changer for the world, he suggested.

We know a bit about the current situation on climate change. We know which countries are emitting the most global warming emissions. We know that the EU is actively implementing policies to get their emissions down and are serious about keeping climate change at the top of the priority list, even in one of the biggest economic struggles in history. We know that little nations like Tuvalu are working to address climate change. We know that ambitious and engaged countries are running into unseen problems and are unsure where to go in the future. We know that the US is looking to pass a climate bill for the first time and could change history in the process, and the USDA supports it but climate change groups, consumer advocate groups, and social equity groups are quite concerned about some of the changes made by the House of Representatives at the last minute. We know that China, India, and Brazil’s growth in greenhouse gas emissions have skyrocketed (several times faster than developed countries’ still growing emissions) in the past two decades.

Environmentalists, politicians and eco-minded individuals everywhere have begun to view President Obama as a new Green Messiah. In just a few weeks the President has elevated the fight against global warming to higher levels of seriousness.

Daniel Nelson of OneWorld UK and OneClimate interviews the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Yvo De Boer as part of OneClimate’s Virtual Poznan event.

See also:

From Second Life to Real Life: Global Warming Activism in the Metaverse
UN’s De Boer Warns of Devastating Impacts if We Don’t Act on Climate Change

The UN’s Yvo de Boer briefs the press at day two of the UNFCCC climate meeting in Poznan, Poland.

Yvo de Boer briefs the press on the strategic goals of the COP14 UN Climate Change Conference in Poznan, Poland,