NEW YORK — President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to push for completion next year of a comprehensive treaty reducing greenhouse gas emissions, warning that the Earth’s climate appears to be “changing faster than our efforts to address it.”
Obama, speaking to a gathering of world leaders at a special U.N. climate summit, said the United States was willing to commit to steeper cuts in its own carbon emissions, but he insisted that other nations — including those in the developing world — must do the same if the planet was to be spared dramatic temperature increases in coming decades.
“The alarm bells are ringing,” Obama told the assembly, which included heads of state from more than 120 countries. “We cannot pretend we do not hear them.”
Obama said the looming ecological crisis caused by the buildup of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere posed a greater danger to the planet than terrorism or Africa’s worsening Ebola epidemic.
“There’s one issue that will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other, and that is the urgent and growing threat of a changing climate,” Obama said. He ticked off a list of recent U.S. weather disasters — from Hurricane Sandy to the record droughts in the West — as evidence that the once-distant threat of climate change has “now moved firmly into the present.”
Obama was one of scores of heads of state to address the U.N. summit, convened by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to pressure the world’s industrialized countries ahead of a round of climate negotiations scheduled for late next year in Paris. Previous efforts failed to yield a global deal on cutting carbon emissions, in part because of differences between developing countries and the industrialized nations historically responsible for the bulk of the pollutants in the atmosphere. But in recent years, China has overtaken the United States as the largest single emitter of greenhouse gases.
Obama reiterated his commitment to seeking an “ambitious” global pact on climate change, even while acknowledging heavy political resistance in the United States, where Congress has repeatedly voiced opposition to binding limits on carbon emissions. He said Washington and Beijing bear special responsibility for reducing carbon pollution, but he added: “No one gets a pass.”
“We can only succeed in combatting climate change if we are joined by every nation,” he said.
Fact-checking obama’s speech
President Barack Obama glossed over some inconvenient truths Tuesday in his climate-change speech to the United Nations. For one, as the U.S. cleans up emissions at home, it’s sending dirty fuel abroad to pollute the same sky. Also, the U.S. is not cleaning up quite as aggressively as Obama implied in his remarks. A look at some of Obama’s claims and how they compare with the facts:
OBAMA: “Over the past eight years, the United States has reduced our total carbon pollution by more than any other nation on Earth.”
THE FACTS: Europe as a whole has cut a bigger proportion of its emissions. From 2005 to 2013, the period cited by Obama, the European Union reduced carbon dioxide by 13.9 percent, compared with a 10 percent reduction in the U.S. Because the United States pollutes more, it has reduced more raw emissions than the EU — cutting raw tonnage by 649 million tons since 2005, compared with Europe’s reduction of 614 million tons. But Europe has cut a bigger proportion of its emissions.
OBAMA: “So, all told, these advances have helped create jobs, grow our economy and drive our carbon pollution to its lowest levels in nearly two decades — proving that there does not have to be a conflict between a sound environment and strong economic growth.”
THE FACTS: About half of the 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions the U.S. has achieved in recent years can be attributed to the economic recession. Obama’s comments also left out that U.S. carbon emissions rose 2.9 percent from 2012 to 2013, the first increase since 2007, because higher natural gas prices spurred more coal use.
OBAMA: “We’re helping more nations skip past the dirty phase of development, using current technologies, not duplicating the same mistakes and environmental degradation that took place previously.”
THE FACTS: The U.S. is actually sending more dirty fuel abroad even as it takes steps to help other nations transition to cleaner energy. The U.S. has cuts its own coal consumption by 195 million tons in six years. But according to an AP analysis of Energy Department data, about 20 percent of that coal was shipped to power plants and other customers overseas. Emissions from that coal were not eliminated but rather moved to other countries.
OBAMA: “Today I’m directing our federal agencies to begin factoring climate resilience into our international development programs and investments.”
THE FACTS: Not an entirely new effort. The U.S. Agency for International Development already factors climate-change impact in its assistance programs, says Oxfam America. Raymond C. Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president, welcomed news that more U.S. agencies will do the same while saying that amounts to “a drop in the bucket” without additional financial commitments. The Associated Press
