http://euobserver.com/9/29722/?rk=1
EU climate chief pessimistic after US visit
LEIGH PHILLIPS
19.03.2010 @ 09:26 CET
EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard has ended meetings with her
various US counterparts dejected by uncertainty as to whether Washington
will be able to pass badly-needed climate legislation in time for a
summit Mexico.
"It's very, very nervous times. People don't know, will it fly or will
it not fly," she told reporters in the American capital on on Thursday
(18 March), a day after she had met with climate special envoy Todd
Stern, climate and energy 'tsar' Carol Browner, the administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, Lisa Jackson and a clutch of senators
and congressmen.
The Congress: US climate legislation has all-but stalled (Photo: wikipedia)
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"The feeling that I got yesterday was that, well, not too many want to
bet on the timing and what could be the outcome," she said.
US legislation in the climate area has all but stalled, with the Obama
administration focused on a debate about healthcare and this year's
mid-term elections.
Without Washington able to pass laws to match Mr Obama's international
greenhouse gas emission reduction pledges, reaching a binding
international deal this year by December's UN climate summit in Cancun,
Mexico, will be impossible.
"What we hear coming out of the American discussion, coming out of
Beijing, coming out of Delhi, maybe also Mexico, [is that] it would be
difficult to get all the details set [for such a deal]," the EU
commissioner said.
The US has pledged to reduce its emissions by 17 percent on 2005 levels
by 2020. Most other powers however, including the EU, use 1990 as the
baseline year. Using the same measuring stick, Washington would cut
emissions by four percent on 1990 levels by 2020.
If the country cannot achieve even this at the congressional level, the
chances of a global deal become ever more unlikely.
The Obama administration does have a plan B, should the bill be defeated.
In 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Environmental Protection
Agency, a government regulatory body, has the authority to regulate
greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. Instead of legislation forcing
industry to cap its emissions, the EPA could simply regulate that they
must do so.
Asked about the plan B, Ms Hedegaard was not optimistic and feared that
the EPA, should it choose to do so in the absence of climate
legislation, would almost certainly be faced with a series of lawsuits
from enterprises affected by its enforcement of the Clean Air Act.
