theglobaljournal.net: Latest activities of group Todd Stern

Special Envoy "Not Pessimistic" about Climate Conference

2011-09-26T10:31:53Z

The Special US Envoy for Climate Change, Todd Stern, said he is “not pessimistic” about a climate change conference scheduled for later this year but he warned that the US will back a revised Kyoto protocol depending on what shape it will take and what nations sign on.

“The US position is that it would consider it only if it is genuinely binding with developed and developing countries including China and others without escape hatches,” Stern told reporters at the end of the 12th Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate in Washington (September 19). The meeting took place ahead of the Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, scheduled at the end of November.

Stern said the future of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change was the key subject at the Forum. “It was one of the toughest issues, if not the toughest issue in the negotiation. What happens to it? Will there be a second commitment period or not? What shape would the regime take? These are controversial and difficult subjects.”

The Major Economies Forum was launched by President Obama in 2009 to provide open and frank discussions on climate change issues in support of concrete progress in the United Nations climate negotiations.

The 17 members of the Major Economies Forum are Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, representatives from Colombia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Spain attended.

Asked about a perceived loss of confidence in President Barack Obama on the international front, Stern replied, “I think what people in the climate change world were hoping for with quite a lot of vigor in 2009-2010 was for the comprehensive energy and climate legislation that we tried to get enacted…and there was a lot of satisfaction when it got through the House, but disappointment when it didn’t get done.”

Stern praised the President’s accomplishments in regulating the transportation sector, increasing vehicle fuel efficiency and making major investments with significant impacts on renewables. “Would people like to see the US do more? Absolutely. No doubt about it… I think there is a lot of faith that the President wants to get things done.”

Asked what kind of progress might be accomplished in Durban, he said “I am truly not pessimistic,” adding that “several specific results could be achieved in Durban with respect to the Green Fund. There could be good progress on how to set that up…I’m not predicting what will happen but they have to go as a package. We can’t say we want a Tech Center or a Green Fund…so throw transparency overboard. No, we’re not doing that. I’m not a bit pessimistic. I think there’s real work that can get done.”

Earthly Powers

2011-09-17T21:55:44Z

Todd Stern, the United States climate envoy, in charge of brokering an international deal on climate, photographed at the State Department, Washington. D.C.

The United States Major Economies Forum

by Joe Conason

When the world’s leaders left Copenhagen under a cloud of disappointment last December, the prospect of an unprecedented planetary disaster loomed on history’s horizon. How could the threat of rising temperatures be averted if, as many environmentalists had declared, the fifteenth conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) represented the last best chance to save the earth? Bitter debate between advanced and developing countries again delayed vital progress. Once more, the United Nations proved defective as an institution for resolving the most pressing disputes among nations. Under the roles governing the Fifteenth Conference of the Parties or COP15, no binding agreement could be approved unless every member agreed—and every member would never agree on anything that truly needed to be done.

Humanity was trapped in a carbon cul-de-sac. Several months before that spectacle unfolded, however, Barack Obama and his peers had quietly set forth on a parallel path toward a sustainable future. Without abandoning the U.N. process, the American president had brought together leaders of 17 major industrial and developing countries in March 2009 to discuss practical means for addressing climate change with technology and money. Arrayed around the same table were representatives of the most prolific current sources of greenhouse gas, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, with representatives of those that will soon reach or surpass that level, including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Africa (the E.U. and Denmark were als invited). Aiming for both candid dialogue and concrete solutions, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF), as the group is formally known, was unable to save the Copenhagen summit. But it has become far more important in the wake of that debacle.

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Captain Planet

2011-04-11T16:20:55Z

Tood Stern, Special Envoy for Climate Change, US State Department

Todd Stern undoubtedly has the most critical role in the US contemporary energy adventure. The Special Envoy for Climate Change, close to Hillary Clinton, in reality acts as Viceroy for the United States, and perhaps this isn’t such a bad idea.

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