Ban asks US to do more on global climate change
25 May 2009
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said a draft US climate plan fell short of the measures required to cut greenhouse gases. The plan had been approved three days before in a key Congressional panel vote.
Ban commended president Barack Obama's initiatives on global warming but said that other countries were doing more. He added that a new global climate agreement to be approved in December could not wait for the US to pass its domestic rules.
Ban said he had been urging the US to do more and would continue to do so.
Under the bill passed on Thursday, the US would aim to cut greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming by 17 per cent to levels less than that of 2005 by 2020.
"That's clearly lower than other countries are now aiming, particularly the European Union," Ban said on the fringes of a climate change and business conference in Copenhagen.
"I appreciate President Obama and his administration taking an active role. Now we need to continue to encourage the United States to do more," he said, adding that he welcomed the vote by the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee.
With the panel's approval the draft bill moves closer to a vote in the full House, and could be passed by August, but it was not clear whether it would go through the Senate by December.
Ban said that should not be any conditionality of this global deal in Copenhagen. He had earlier said that a deal in December was not an option.
A UN General Assembly summit on climate change in September, the largest forum on the issue would be ''critically important'' in allowing leaders to sort their differences three moths ahead of an anticipated deal, he added.
He said that he would try to make it the most interactive debate forum among the leaders so they can exercise the commitment and vision to look for the future of the entire planet.
Poorer countries blame the developed world for the more than two centuries of industrialisation that polluted the atmosphere releasing green house gases from burning fossil fuels. They expect the developed nations to act first.
Developing nations led by India and China want the developed countries to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 per cent by 2020 on the 1990 levels, but the US bill aims to cut emissions to 1990 levels.
The US will try and engage rich and poor counties including China, the EU, Russia, India and Japan in Paris in talks on 25-26 May to cooperate in fighting climate change.
.Analysts say Thursday's vote by the US House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee for cuts in emissions would help US gain credibility with other nations as former president George W Bush had taken little initiative on the climate change challenge.
According to Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the act would allow the US to help lead the efforts towards a global agreement.
Bush's policies projected US emissions peaking only in 2025 which was at odds with US industrial allies in the existing UN Kyoto Protocol that sought emissions cuts at least 5 per cent below the 1990 levels by 2008-12.
