December 17, 2009 - Clinton Says U.S. Would Raise Billions for Developing Countries
Environment
Secretary Clinton Says U.S. Would Raise Billions for Developing Countries
By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer
December 17, 2009
Washington — The Obama administration is prepared to join other major economies in coming up with $100 billion per year over the next 10 years for a fund to help developing countries cope with climate-change needs. However, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says, any global climate-change agreement will also need to include transparency standards to help verify that each country is fulfilling its commitments.
Speaking at the annual meeting of signatories to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen December 17, Clinton warned other delegations, “We are running out of time.” The convention is scheduled to end December 18.
“We have now reached the critical juncture in these negotiations,” she said, acknowledging that talks have been difficult. But the absence of an accord would be “catastrophic” for the developing world, she said.
“In the time we have left here, it can no longer be about us versus them — this group of nations pitted against that group. We all face the same challenge together,” she said.
“We know what will happen. Rising seas, lost farmland, drought and so much else. Without the accord, the opportunity to mobilize significant resources to assist developing countries with mitigation and adaptation will be lost,” Clinton said.
There are core elements of an accord that signal a way forward, the secretary said: assistance for countries most vulnerable to climate change and standards of transparency that will provide credibility to national pledges to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and other aspects of an agreement.
“The world community should accept no less,” Clinton said. “And the United States is ready to embrace this path.”
Clinton said the $100 billion-a-year fund will “include a significant focus on forestry and adaptation, particularly … for the poorest and most vulnerable among us.” The United States and other contributors to the fund expect the money to “come from a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance,” she said.
“A hundred billion dollars a year is a lot of money. That’s a commitment that is very real and can have tangible effects,” Clinton said. But the U.S. commitment is contingent upon an agreement with standards of transparency “that provide credibility to the entire process.”
“How it is defined and implemented is something we should leave up to the negotiations,” Clinton said. But “if there is not even a commitment to pursue transparency, that’s kind of a deal-breaker for us.”
The Obama administration has announced its intention to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions “in the range of 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2020 and ultimately in line with final climate and energy legislation,” Clinton said. “The expected pathway in pending legislation would extend those cuts to 30 percent by 2025, 42 percent by 2030, and more than 80 percent by 2050.”
She said all of the world’s major economies must commit to “meaningful mitigation actions and stand behind them in a transparent way,” and every country shares an obligation to “engage constructively and creatively toward a workable solution.”
The Copenhagen talks have seen problems and disagreements, but Clinton said “the underlying reality is we have to do everything we can to reach this agreement.”
Without a binding agreement in which developed and developing countries agree to take on their respective obligations, “there will not be the kind of concerted, global action that we so desperately need,” she said.