Kerry says talks on climate must remain on track

World leaders mull new treaty

WASHINGTON - Senator John Kerry, who leaves today for international climate talks in Poznan, Poland, says that the outgoing Bush administration and the economic crisis facing the country should not impede progress toward negotiating a new international global warming agreement in Copenhagen next year.

"We need to keep it on track, we need to make sure that the slow pace of the [Bush] administration doesn't downgrade people's sense of possibility," he said in an interview in his office on Monday, as he prepared to join a congressional delegation at the Poznan talks today.

After meeting with former vice president Al Gore and Vice President-elect Joe Biden in Chicago yesterday to talk about climate change, President-elect Barack Obama endorsed an aggressive approach to concerted international action on global warming.

"All three of us are in agreement that the time for delay is over," Obama said. "The time for denial is over. We all believe what the scientists have been telling us for years now, that this is a matter of urgency and national security, and it has to be dealt with in a serious way. That is what I intend my administration to do."

World leaders are gathering in Poznan this week to create a successor treaty to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, in which dozens of nations, but not the United States, agreed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In Bali last year, nations set a goal of negotiating a successor to Kyoto, which expires in 2012, in Copenhagen in 2009. Delegates in Poznan are discussing ideas and setting a work schedule leading to Copenhagen.

The economic crisis and the timing of the talks have dampened expectations for the conference. The sour economy may discourage wealthier nations from agreeing to help fund cleaner energy in developing countries. And the United States is being represented in Poznan by the Bush administration; Obama, who has promised to take strong action on climate change, has not sent representatives. Congress, meanwhile, is nowhere near agreement on how much the US could pledge to cut its emissions.

Kert Davies, research director for Greenpeace, said the discussions had gotten off to a slow start and that he hoped Kerry's arrival would send "a strong signal that US senior leadership stands ready to help the world tackle global warming."

But Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said she believed it would be "very challenging" at this point to reach a full and final agreement in Copenhagen.

"I agree it is worth trying, but at the same time, I think it's important to figure out how you can make enough progress in Copenhagen so you could complete it soon thereafter," she said.

Kerry is not going to Poznan as a negotiator but rather as incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which would eventually have to approve any international treaty.

"It is critical, absolutely essential, that the United States show its bona fides on this issue and others immediately," he added.

In the interview, Kerry said the US must commit to mandatory emission reductions. A critical question is how much: Environmentalists are calling for reductions of 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, which the International Panel on Climate Change has said is necessary to keep global temperatures from rising more than 3.5 degrees - the tipping-point temperature change the panel said would cause significant environmental and societal destruction.