US ‘ready to lead’ on climate change

By Andrew Ward and Daniel Dombey in Washington and John Reed in Detroit
Published: January 26 2009 20:04

Barack Obama on Monday announced measures to reduce US dependence on fossil fuels but warned China and India they would not be excused from global efforts to tackle climate change.
In a speech setting out his energy agenda, the US president vowed to push through tougher fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to consider allowing individual states to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

Both steps threaten to create significant new challenges for US carmakers as they struggle for survival, but Mr Obama said “greener” vehicles would improve the industry’s long-term viability and help wean the country off foreign oil.
The initiatives marked a sharp break from the policies of President George W. Bush, who was accused of ignoring climate change, and added to a series of early moves by Mr Obama to overturn his predecessor’s legacy.
He said “the days of Washington dragging its heels” on global warming were over, declaring that “America is ready to lead” on the issue.
But he warned that US action would be effective only as part of a “truly global coalition”, including the world’s two largest developing economies.
“I’ve made it clear that we will act, but so too must the world,” he said. “That’s how we will deny leverage to dictators and dollars to terrorists, and that’s how we will ensure that nations like China and India are doing their part.”
His remarks came as the state department announced the appointment of Todd Stern, a former senior official in the Clinton administration, as its chief envoy on climate change.
Mr Stern, who was chief US negotiator on global warming in the late 1990s, will lead the Obama administration’s efforts to help broker a replacement for the Kyoto treaty when it expires in 2012.
The role of China and India is sure to be one of the most sensitive elements of such a deal, given their rapidly increasing share of global carbon emissions.
Mr Bush often stressed that the US would not make binding commitments to limit emissions unless China and India did too, warning that any exceptions would hurt US competitiveness and export pollution to the developing world. Many developing countries argue that the US and Europe should bear a greater burden because they generate more emissions per capita.
Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, on Monday indicated that the Obama administration was likely to keep up pressure on China and India, arguing that “no solution is feasible without all major emitting nations”.
But she made clear that the US would become more engaged in efforts to negotiate a deal, declaring that “the time for realism and action is now”.
Mr Obama’s moves to tighten regulations on fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions sent an early signal that his administration was prepared to act – even in the face of opposition from important interest groups such as the car industry.
In a step that could pave the way for more than a dozen states to impose tough new regulations, the president ordered the EPA to reconsider a Bush administration decision to block California from setting its own vehicle emissions standards.
Carmakers – including Detroit’s Asian and European competitors – had long lobbied in favour of a single set of US emissions standards, arguing that differing standards by state would make their operations costlier and more complex, and conflict with other federally set rules.
Monday’s announcement added to the worries of the car industry as it suffers its slowest sales since the 1980s. General Motors, which along with Chrysler is receiving $17.4bn of federal emergency aid, on Monday said it was cutting 2,000 jobs at plants in Michigan and Ohio because of slow sales.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009