More Policy Neutral Advice From the IPCC
December 18th, 2008Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Rajendra Pachauri, director of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC — an organization with a stated mandate to be policy neutral in its advice — offers the Obama Administration policy neutral helpful advice on not only on U.S. participation in international negotiations in climate polcies (follow Europe’s lead), but also on domestic transportation policies, federalism, energy security, and employment.
December 19th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Well, President-Elect Obama has received a letter also from Kyoto veteran F. James Sensenbrenner who writes e.g.
“…Specifically, any treaty that does not include legally binding and verifiable greenhouse gas emissions reductions from developing countries will not be ratified by the U.S. Senate because it will not accomplish the fundamental goal of reducing global emissions.
You are aware of the Byrd-Hagel Resolution, which the U.S. Senate adopted by a 95-to-0 vote on July 25, 1997, expressing the sense of the Senate that the U.S. should not be a signatory to an agreement that does not include specific scheduled commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions for developing countries or will result in serious harm to the U.S. economy. Because the Kyoto Protocol failed to satisfy these requirements, neither President Clinton nor President Bush submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification. At a meeting in Poznań, Senator John Kerry and Vice President Al Gore agreed that an international treaty must include mandatory emissions reductions from developing countries.
The current negotiations seem to be leading toward a similarly flawed outcome. At another meeting in Poznań, I met with negotiators from foreign countries, including China and India. These countries, the first and third largest CO2 emitters in the world, clearly stated that they would not accept legally binding emissions reductions.
The impasse that international negotiators have reached indicates that a new strategy is necessary. I am eager to assist you in emphasizing that, without legally-binding, verifiable commitments from all nations, global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are neither scientifically nor politically achievable…”