Building Blocks for Long-Term Cooperative Action and Their Coherent Integration Into an Appropriate and Effective International Response to Climate ChangeDr. Harlan Watson, Senior Climate Negotiator and Special RepresentativeRemarks to the Fourth Workshop: Dialogue on Long-Term Cooperative Action to Address Cimate Change by Enhancing Implementation of the Convention Vienna, Austria August 27, 2007 The Dialogue workshops have provided useful and informative discussions and exchanges of views and experiences among Parties, intergovernmental organizations, NGO’s, businesses, and research institutions on development goals, market-based opportunities, technology, and adaptation. We also look forward to informative discussions of the Secretariat’s report on investment and financial flows, which will be considered tomorrow.
Many of the building blocks that have been discussed thus far are closely aligned with President Bush’s “Major Economies” proposal, announced on May 31, 2007. In that announcement, the President stressed the vital need for the major economies to work together to achieve the common objectives of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, increasing energy security and efficiency, and sustaining economic growth. The President has asked Secretary of State Rice to host a meeting of major economies in Washington, D.C., on September 27 - 28, 2007. At this meeting, we would seek agreement on the process by which the major economies would, by the end of 2008, agree upon a post-2012 framework that could include a long-term global goal, nationally defined mid-term goals and strategies, and sector-based approaches for improving energy security and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, we expect to place special emphasis on how major economies can, in close cooperation with the private sector, accelerate the development and deployment of clean technologies, a critical component of an effective global approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We plan to follow this initial session with a series of meetings throughout 2008 to further refine our plans and accelerate our progress on this important challenge. We will be building on the work under the Dialogue and the Convention and contributing to further efforts to enhancing implementation of the Convention. The United States is committed to collaborating with other major economies to agree on a detailed contribution for a new global framework by the end of 2008, which would contribute to a global agreement under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change by 2009. |
 | |||
|
