– Ambitious 2030 goal –
In June, Obama unveiled new standards aimed at achieving a drastic reduction in carbon emissions from all existing power plants — a 30 percent reduction of 2005 levels by 2030.
But the White House has delayed addressing the difficult debate surrounding the legal nature of the agreement that 195 nations in the UN Convention on Climate Change will hope to reach in Paris at the end of next year.
The US Constitution states that all legally binding treaties must be ratified by two thirds of the US Senate, an unthinkable prospect in the current political climate. Memories of the Kyoto Protocol, negotiated and signed in 1997 but never ratified by the United States, also loom large.
US negotiator Stern said the terms of any new climate agreement “is a matter that is completely open for question and for discussion,” noting that in Durban in 2011 the countries had agreed only to negotiate a “protocol, another legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force.”
“That is a very elastic phrase,” Stern said.
Obama’s climate team is reportedly working to put together a “politically binding” deal which would combine voluntary pledges with legally binding conditions from already existing treaties. Any such pact would avoid the need to seek ratification from the US Senate.
“Unfortunately, this would be just another of many examples of the Obama administration’s tendency to abide by laws that it likes and to disregard laws it doesn’t like – and to ignore the elected representatives of the people when they don’t agree,” US Senate Republican
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in response to reports outlining the administration’s strategy.
Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute said any international agreement faced a “very challenging road” in the United States.
“It’s also a narrow road, because for most other countries around the world, having an agreement that is legally binding is a top priority,” she said.
“They want to know that the US and other countries are going to implement their commitments. It will one of the big challenges of president Obama to navigate that with other countries.”
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