USA Must Aim for Achievable Targets On Climate Change

America To Be Pragmatic On Climate Change

Jonathan Pershing, America’s lead negotiator, has claimed the US must not promise more than it could deliver by 2020, referring to cuts in CO2 emissions. Poor countries said the latest science showed rich states should cut emissions by 40% on 1990 levels by 2020. However the Obama administration aims only to stabilize greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2020.

Pershing told the press that he was very worried the Earth might already be condemned to dangerous climate change.

But he said the US should not make promises for 2020 that it could not keep: “It is not the point in time in 2020 that matters – it is a long-term trajectory against which the science measures cumulative emissions.”

“The president has also announced his intent to pursue an 80% reduction by 2050.”