Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
flows
of
private
investment
in
low-emissions
and
climate
resilient
infrastructure.
II. Leading Efforts to Address Climate Change through
International Negotiations
The United States has made historic progress in the international climate
negotiations during the past four years. At the Copenhagen Conference of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in
2009, President Obama and other world leaders agreed for the first time that
all major countries, whether developed or developing, would implement
targets or actions to limit greenhouse emissions, and do so under a new regime
of international transparency. And in 2011, at the year-end climate meeting in
Durban, we achieved another breakthrough: Countries agreed to negotiate a
new agreement by the end of 2015 that would have equal legal force and be
applicable to all countries in the period after 2020. This was an important step
beyond the previous legal agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, whose core
obligations applied to developed countries, not to China, India, Brazil or other
emerging countries.
The 2015 climate conference is slated to play a critical role in defining a
post-2020 trajectory. We will be seeking an agreement that is ambitious,
inclusive and flexible. It needs to be ambitious to meet the scale of the
challenge facing us. It needs to be inclusive because there is no way to meet
that challenge unless all countries step up and play their part. And it needs to
be flexible because there are many differently situated parties with their own
needs and imperatives, and those differences will have to be accommodated in
smart, practical ways.
At the same time as we work toward this outcome in the UNFCCC
context, we are making progress in a variety of other important negotiations as
well. At the Montreal Protocol, we are leading efforts in support of an
amendment that would phase down HFCs; at the International Maritime
Organization, we have agreed to and are now implementing the first-ever
sector-wide, internationally applicable energy efficiency standards; and at the
International Civil Aviation Organization, we have ambitious aspirational
emissions and energy efficiency targets and are working towards agreement to
develop a comprehensive global approach.
