Obama says 'unprecedented' deal reached on climate-but officials admit is not enought

Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered to cut Britain's carbon emissions by 42 per cent - 10 times the United States' proposed level

Greenpeace activists dressed in dinner suits are led away by security staff after turning up at the official state dinner in Copenhagen last night

A demonstrator receives help as she suffers the effects of pepper spray while protesters attempt to break through police lines outside the Bella Centre

French PM gestures during meeting.President Barack Obama walks off of Air Force One at Copenhagen Airport , Kastrup, Denmark Friday, Dec. 18, 2009 to attend the United Nations Climate Change Conference.


Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad gestures during a press conference at the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen Friday Dec. 18, 2009. The largest and most important climate change conference is on its last scheduled day, aiming to secure an agreement on how to protect the world from calamitous global warming.


President Barack Obama speaks at the morning plenary session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009.U.S. President Barack Obama speaks on the podium during the plenary session at the climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Friday, Dec. 18, 2009. President Obama says that the world's will to address climate change "hangs in the balance" and insists any deal must include transparency among nations.




Antti Kaartinen, center, a communications official responsible for protocol during the press conferences, is stopped by Iranian security guards as he tried to walk up to the podium, during Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's press conference at the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen Friday Dec. 18, 2009. The largest and most important climate change conference is on its last scheduled day, aiming to secure an agreement on how to protect the world from calamitous global warming.



"We have an agreement," Sarkozy told a news conference in Copenhagen after the meeting of 120 world leaders. He added: "The text we have is not perfect."

Under the accord, he said all countries including China would have to submit written plans for curbs in carbon dioxide emissions by January 2010. And he said that all countries had signed up for a plan to provide developing nations with $100 billion a year in aid by 2020.

President Barack Obama declared Friday a "meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough" had been reached among the U.S., China and three other countries on a global effort to curb climate change but said much work was still be needed to reach a legally binding treaty.

"It is going to be very hard, and it's going to take some time," he said near the conclusion of a 193-nation global warming summit. "We have come a long way, but we have much further to go."

The president said there was a "fundamental deadlock in perspectives" between big, industrially developed countries like the United States and poorer, though sometimes large, developing nations. Still he said this week's efforts "will help us begin to meet our responsibilities to leave our children and grandchildren a cleaner planet."

The deal as described by Obama reflects some progress helping poor nations cope with climate change and getting China to disclose its actions to address the warming problem.

But it falls far short of committing any nation to pollution reductions beyond a general acknowledgment that the effort should contain global temperatures along the lines agreed to at a conference of the leading economic nations last July.

Obama suggested Friday's agreement among the five key countries would be adopted by the larger summit in its closing hours.

"I am leaving before the final vote," he said. "We feel confident we are moving in the direction of a final accord."

If the countries had waited to reach a full, binding agreement, "then we wouldn't make any progress," Obama said. In that case, he said, "there might be such frustration and cynicism that rather than taking one step forward we ended up taking two steps back."

The limited agreement by the U.S., China, Brazil, India and South Africa reflected the intense political and economic obstacles that had blocked a binding accord to restrict emissions of "greenhouse gases" believed to be causing a dangerous warming of the Earth.

The accord calls for the participating countries to list specific actions they have taken to control emissions and the commitments they are willing to make to achieve deeper reductions.

There would be a method for verifying reductions of heat-trapping gases, a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity before Obama made his comments.

Obama said the five nation's pledges would be "subject to an international consultation" that will allow each country to "show the world what they're doing."

China's resistance to a verification mechanism had been one of the major sticking points for the U.S. during the two weeks of climate negotiations here.

"We're in this together, and we'll know who is meeting and not meeting the mutual obligations that are set forth," Obama said.

As for the U.S., he said, "We will not be legally bound by anything that took place here today," pre-emptively answering congressional critics who had warned repeatedly that Congress will have the final say in any U.S. emission reduction commitments.

The deal also would provide a mechanism to help poor countries pay for dealing with climate change.

The president had planned to spend only about nine hours in Copenhagen as the summit wrapped up after two weeks. But, as an agreement appeared within reach, he added extended his stay by more than six hours to attend a series of meetings aimed at brokering a deal.

"We are running short on time," Obama had told the summit as the clock was running out on its final day. "There has to be movement on all sides."

He met with other leaders, including Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Late in the evening, Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton held talks with European leaders, including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Asked how negotiations were going as he entered the meeting, Obama replied: "Always hopeful."

The direct talks between Obama and Wen underscored efforts to resolve differences that represent one of the major roadblocks in reaching a global climate deal. The U.S. has been insisting that China, the only nation that emits more heat-trapping gasses than the U.S., make its emissions-reduction pledges subject to international review.

Hours before his announcement of the limited agreement, without mentioning China specifically, Obama said, "I don't know how you have an international agreement where we all are not sharing information and making sure we are meeting our commitments. That doesn't make sense. It would be a hollow victory."

Obama indirectly acknowledged that some nations feel the United States is doing too little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and he urged leaders to accept a less-than-perfect pact. Meanwhile, he offered no new U.S. concessions.

"No country will get everything that it wants," Obama said.

It's possible that Obama's biggest success here will have nothing to do with the climate. He met with the Russian president and said afterward that the United States and Russia are "quite close" to a new nuclear arms control agreement to replace an expired Cold War-era arms control treaty.

The U.S. commitment to reduce greenhouse gasses mirrors legislation before Congress. It calls for 17 percent reduction in such pollution from 2005 levels by 2020 — the equivalent of 3 percent to 4 percent from the more commonly used baseline of 1990 levels. That is far less than the offers from the European Union, Japan and Russia.

Even that target was hard-won in a skittish Congress, and Obama has decided he can't go further without potentially souring final passage of the bill, approved in the House but not yet considered in the Senate. He also could imperil eventual Senate ratification of any global treaty that emerges next year.

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EPA's Carbon Decision Gives Obama Copenhagen Tool-Official declared Co2 is dangerous to mankind.-Backlash fear of expensive energy and cut jobs

Lisa Jackson announcing the new US government position that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health.


US Environmental Protection Agency Director Lisa Jackson talks about a new Obama administration position that greenhouse gasses are a threat to public health at the EPA in Washington Monday.


The US Environmental Protection Agency has formally declared greenhouses gases a danger to human health.

The announcement means the organisation can bring in regulations regarding the gases without legislation from US Congress, where President Obama's plans to combat climate change have stalled previously.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said it meant there were "no more excuses for delay" and the government would "not ignore science or the law any longer".

Political, costly, and likely to choke off growth. That's how the energy industry and companies that use a lot of energy describe the Environmental Protection Agency's announcement that greenhouse gas emissions are a danger and must be regulated.

The Supreme Court declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are pollutants and could be regulated under the Clean Air Act in 2007, but oil companies, utilities and large manufacturers had anticipated new federal laws long before that.

Almost all energy and energy intense industries hope that Congress will step in with new climate laws, namely through a cap-and-trade system that limits greenhouse gas emissions, but allows companies to buy or sell emissions credits.

If not, companies say, jobs will be lost, an economic recovery will be hamstrung and everyone will pay more for energy.

Here's what some are saying about the EPA announcement:

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Chamber President and CEO Thomas J. Donohue said EPA regulations could lead to "a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project."

"The devil will be in the details," Donohue said.

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National Association of Manufacturers

Keith McCoy, Vice President of Energy and Resources Policy, said an EPA regulation on its own would make energy more expensive and force manufacturers to cut jobs.

"Unemployment is hovering at 10 percent and many manufacturers are struggling to stay in business," McCoy said. "It is doubtful that the endangerment finding will achieve its stated goal, but it is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy."

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The American Petroleum Institute

The main lobbying group for oil and gas companies called the EPA announcement a political maneuver, burnishing President Obama's environmental record ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit. The Clean Air Act was not meant to regulate greenhouse gases, said API President Jack Gerard.

U.S. oil and natural gas companies spent $58 billion between 2000 and 2008 on technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Gerard said. That's "more than either the federal government or all other U.S.-based private industry combined," he said.

OBAMA administration declare C02 dangerous.

The Obama administration adopted its climate change plan B today, formally declaring carbon dioxide a public danger so that it can cut greenhouse gas emissions even without the agreement of a reluctant Senate.

The timing of the announcement – in the opening hours of the UN's Copenhagen climate change summit – prevents Barack Obama from arriving at the talks without concrete evidence that America will do its bit to cut the emissions that cause global warming.

"Climate change has now become a household issue," said Lisa Jackson, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), adding that the evidence of climate change was real and increasingly alarming. "This administration will not ignore science or the law any longer, nor will we ignore the responsibility we owe to our children and our grandchildren."

The announcement gives the EPA a legal basis for capping emissions from major sources such as coal power plants, as well as cars. Jackson said she hoped it would help to spur a deal in Copenhagen.

The EPA action had been seen as a backstop should Congress fail to pass climate change law. Obama and other officials had repeatedly said they would prefer to pass legislation, but that prospect has grown increasingly remote. The House of Representatives narrowly passed a climate change bill in June, but the proposals have stalled in the Senate.

Jackson said the EPA's regulations, which would come into effect from next spring, would not be too onerous, applying only to facilities emitting more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year.

The oil and manufacturing industries, which have opposed climate change action, said the move was overly politicised, and warned that the new regulations would be tied up in lawsuits.

The US Chamber of Commerce, also sceptical on global warming, said the move would hurt the economy. "An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down, command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," said Thomas Donohue, the chamber's president.

Jackson is to address the Copenhagen meeting on Wednesday, while Obama will join more than 100 other world leaders in the Danish capital on the final day of the conference, on 18 December.

The endangerment declaration dates from a supreme court decision in 2007 ordering the EPA to make a ruling on whether carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions were a pollutant subject to the Clean Air Act of the 1970s.

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