US President Barack Obama will head to next month’s Copenhagen climate summit to offer the first US plan to cut carbon emissions, officials said, reviving hopes the closely watched meeting will succeed.
The Obama administration offered to curb US emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020 — less than calls by the EU, Japan and UN scientists but the first numbers on the table by the world’s largest economy.
“The president going to Copenhagen will give positive momentum to the negotiations and we think will enhance the prospects for success,” said Carol Browner, Obama’s top aide on climate policy.
Obama will address the meeting in Copenhagen on Dec. 9, the day before he heads to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mike Froman, the deputy national security adviser, said Obama decided to go after sensing progress in talks with China, India and other emerging economies, which rich nations are pressing to do more on global warming.
The White House said Obama would lay out a longer term plan for a 30 percent reduction of US emissions from 2005 levels by 2025, a 42 percent reduction by 2030 and an 83 percent cut by 2050.
Browner said the near-term offer was “in the range” of 17 percent depending on legislation in the deeply divided US Senate, which has delayed action on climate change until next year.
Foreign leaders and environmentalists hailed Obama’s presence, hoping it would breathe new life into the Dec. 7 through Dec. 18 conference meant to draft the successor to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, whose obligations expire in 2012.
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said that if the US offer was clear cut, it can “help pave the way for a successful outcome at Copenhagen.”
But he also said that developed nations needed to come forward on another key part of negotiations — pledging financing to help poorer nations cope with climate change.
“If the president comes in the first week to announce that, it would be a major boost to the conference,” said de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in charge of the conference.
French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo, who was on his way to China, hailed Obama’s offer and said it would help persuade Beijing.
“It’s an extremely encouraging first response,” Borloo said.
Raymond Offenheiser, president of charity Oxfam America, said Obama had lived up to election pledges by showing he is “ready to roll up his sleeves to make a climate change deal happen.”
“Today’s announcement flies in the face of predictions of failure in Copenhagen well before the conference even begins,” he said.
Obama campaigned on promises to fight global warming, a sharp reversal from his predecessor, former US president George W. Bush, who disputed evidence on climate change until late in his presidency and called the Kyoto Protocol unfair to rich countries.
But the US Congress has yet to complete legislation to mandate cuts in emissions, amid staunch opposition from many members of Bush’s Republican Party.
Republican Senator James Inhofe renewed his determination to defeat the bill despite Obama’s plans to fly to Copenhagen, voicing doubt about science on global warming and about China and India’s willingness to act.
“No amount of lofty rhetoric or promises of future commitments can save it,” Inhofe said of the Copenhagen conference.
But Democratic Senator John Kerry was hopeful that Obama’s announcement could sway not only other nations but also US lawmakers.
“This could be one hell of a global game changer with big reverberations here at home,” Kerry said.
“The Obama administration is now undeniably mustering bona fide leadership on climate change, not merely departing from Bush administration intransigence and ideology,” said Kerry, who unsuccessfully challenged Bush for the White House in 2004.
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