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Press Roundtable with James L. Connaughton, Chairman, White House Council on Environmental Quality, and C. Boyden Gray, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union
September 12, 2007
Berlin, Germany
Opening remarks:
Chairman Connaughton: Good morning. I'm just back from Sydney, where we had the APEC meetings, and where climate change and energy security were at the top of the agenda, and we had a huge outcome, so it was a great and welcome set of meetings and a very welcome outcome, so we can talk about that a little bit if you like. And I'm here, and we're getting ready for the first meeting of the major economies that will occur on September 27th and 28th in
Following the meetings in Washington there will be a lot of preparations getting ready for the Bali meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which occurs in December, and so this fall will be a particularly busy period as we begin to lay the groundwork for reaching global agreement by the end of 2009 on the new framework for after the Kyoto Protocol ends, which is in 2012. So this is all the working-level activity being engaged at the highest-level ever as we carry out the commitments that the G8 leaders made in Heiligendamm this past summer and that APEC leaders have also now endorsed, the 21 leaders of the APEC, just last week. So, we're getting a great degree of convergence, there's a great degree of convergence on many of the substantive elements of what a future framework might contain, and so this is the process of now putting some effort behind, filling that out.
A few points. The major economy meetings will focus on the issues of sort of direct accountability and responsibility by the major economies, so it will focus very heavily on mitigation by the major economies and by technology advancement that will be necessary to achieve that mitigation. These discussions will reinforce the broader agenda that will be worked on in Bali, which will include issues such as adaptation, include a very broad discussion of financing for climate change as well as in relation to sustainable development and economic growth; and then there's a series of issues related to fixing aspects of the Kyoto Protocol, improving some of the elements of the Kyoto Protocol as it's finishing up through 2012 -- so I think the clean development mechanism will be discussed -- and then a range of just implementing issues, a range of other issues. So I want to be sure that you understand what we are doing in the major economies meetings. It's really focused on coming to some general agreement on the elements of a new framework, and then that will be brought to the UN for further consideration, deliberation by all of the parties to the UN, so this exercise is very much an effort to accelerate the conversation and to reinforce the agenda that all the parties to the UN will be pursuing in Bali and then next year in Poland and then reaching conclusion, we hope, in Denmark in 2009.
Did you want to add something, Ambassador Gray?
Ambassador Gray: No, you've covered everything.
(end opening remarks)
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