The nations of the world expect the U.S. to "live up" to its pledge made last year in Copenhagen to cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% by 2020, the United Nations' official overseeing international climate negotiations said Wednesday.
The nations of the world expect the
U.S.
to
"live up" to its pledge made last year in
Copenhagen
to
cut greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% by 2020, the United Nations' official
overseeing international climate negotiations said Wednesday.
The U.S. and other industrialized countries that have pledged to cut emissions
of carbon dioxide and other gases linked to climate change will be expected to
provide more details on how they plan to make the cuts at international climate
negotiations scheduled to start later this month in Cancun, Mexico, said
Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on
Climate Change, which is hosting the negotiations.
European and other developed nations also have agreed to cut their
greenhouse-gas emissions and in many cases have put those pledges into action
with legislation or other domestic policies. The
U.S.
has
not set policies to put its greenhouse-gas reduction pledge, made in December
2009 at climate negotiations in
Copenhagen
, into
practice.
A proposal in the U.S. Congress that would implement the cuts has stalled and
the outlook for the proposal has dimmed as the nation struggles against a weak
economy and high unemployment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is
considering regulations that would require some greenhouse-gas reductions from
energy and other industries.
The lack of legislative action in the
U.S.
,
which along with
China
, is
one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse-gases, has made the outlook
for an agreement at the upcoming climate negotiations in
Cancun
uncertain.
Figueres said that while a comprehensive global agreement on greenhouse-gas
reductions may prove elusive in
Cancun
, she
is confident that nations will reach agreement on some important
climate-related issues such as protecting forests, sharing emission-reduction
technology and creating a new fund to help developing countries pay for
greenhouse-gas reduction activities.
In addition to those issues, Figueres said industrialized countries including
the
U.S.
will
be expected to provide details in
Cancun
about
how they plan to make the emissions reductions they promised last year.
"All industrialized countries have quantified the effort they're going to
make between [now] and 2020," Figueres said, speaking by telephone with
reporters. "The challenge in
Cancun
is
how to anchor those pledges into action."
With respect to the
U.S.
, if
lawmakers don't take action to put the nation's pledge into action, President
Barack Obama has pledged to take action through regulation, Figueres said.
"The
United States
has
said repeatedly that they will honor that pledge through the regulatory
track," Figueres said. "The world certainly expects the
United
States
to live up to that pledge and
comply with that."
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