Obama says summit in Copenhagen will ‘rally world’ for climate change push

President Barack Obama touted the importance of next month’s climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in spite of the event’s downgraded objectives.

Obama over the weekend acknowledged the meeting won’t produce a legally binding deal to cut emissions, but on Tuesday he insisted a political agreement in Copenhagen, the new goal of the summit, will have an “immediate” effect.

“Our aim there, in support of what Prime Minister [Lars Lokke] Rasmussen of Denmark is trying to achieve, is not a partial accord or a political declaration, but rather an accord that covers all of the issues in the negotiations, and one that has immediate operational effect,” Obama said in Beijing following a meeting with China’s president.

“This kind of comprehensive agreement would be an important step forward in the effort to rally the world around a solution to our climate challenge,” he added.

In Singapore over the weekend, Obama and other heads of state said the objective for Copenhagen would be a political agreement on climate change. Lower-level administration officials had already been downgrading expectations for a final binding agreement on cutting emissions.

Obama made the remarks after he and Chinese President Hu Jintao announced a series of joint “clean energy” agreements that Obama cast as a sign of progress on climate change. China and the U.S. are the world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gas emissions.

The two nations have reached several specific agreements on low-emissions power and vehicles, the White House said. This includes establishment of a joint clean energy research center, building on an agreement Energy Secretary Steven Chu reached with Chinese officials in July. Other joint measures are aimed at spurring use of electric vehicles, renewable power, low-emissions coal and other technologies.

Deputy National Security Adviser Mike Froman stressed that the U.S.-China deal would add momentum to international efforts in Copenhagen despite the absence from the agreement of specifics on emissions-curbing measures.

“I think the agreement today reflected in the joint statement does give momentum to the Copenhagen process,” Froman told reporters. He acknowledged that “further specifics” must be fleshed out by negotiators.

China is believed to back a reduction in its emissions intensity — which means emissions relative to economic activity — rather than an outright reduction target.

“They have sent a strong signal that they are prepared to move forward with an intensity goal. But whether they make that announcement in Copenhagen or wait until the U.S. passes legislation, we still don’t know,” said Jennifer Layke, the deputy director of the climate and energy program at the World Resources Institute.

One of the reasons the goals of Copenhagen have been downgraded is that Congress has been unable to send a climate change bill to Obama.

The House in late June passed a sweeping bill to cut U.S. emissions by 17 percent in 2020 and 80 percent by mid-century, relative to 2005 levels. But a similar plan is moving slowly in the Senate, and Democrats have shelved floor action until next year.

Layke and others view enactment of a U.S. law to strongly reduce its emissions as crucial to reaching a final legal accord in negotiations after Copenhagen.

“I can’t imagine a world where we are able to craft an adequate global target without the United States being part of that agreement,” she  said.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s gloomy jobs forecast from Monday could make it harder for Senate Democrats to advance stalled climate legislation, or at least make the success of a core selling point — the prospect of scores of “green jobs” — all the more decisive.

“The best thing we can say about the labor market right now is that it may be getting worse more slowly,” Bernanke said in New York on Monday.

Unemployment reached 10.2 percent in October and is expected to keep growing for several months.

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