US Mission Geneva

Lisa P. Jackson, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, will serve as alternate head of delegation, and Todd Stern, Special Envoy on Climate Change, will serve as chief negotiator.

Rio+20 is about the future. The United States believes that Rio+20 should be a different kind of meeting, one that transforms the multilateral approach to sustainable development and incorporates its concepts across all sectors.

Reta Jo Lewis spoke at the opening of the Road to Rio – R20 Conference in Geneva March 7, 2012.

International cooperative actions to mitigate climate change will be up for discussion when a major international meeting convenes in Durban, South Africa, November 28 through December 9. The chief U.S. negotiator, Todd Stern, expects that this year’s session on the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will build on progress made in the last two years.

Degradation of the land supporting human life and the food supply is an environmental threat that endangers the lives and livelihoods of more than 1 billion people worldwide. On September 20, world leaders met in a high-level U.N. forum for the first time to address desertification and drought.

The world may finally be on its way toward a legally binding treaty that includes all major greenhouse gas emitters and compensates nations most vulnerable to climate change.

Today I am pleased to announce that we secured the Cancun Agreements, a set of balanced international decisions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) which represent meaningful progress in our global response to climate change.

“The United States today officially announced its desire to associate with the Copenhagen Accord and submitted its emissions reduction target to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The U.S. submission reflects President Obama’s continued commitment to meeting the climate change and clean energy challenge through robust domestic and international action that will strengthen our economy, enhance our national security and protect our environment.

Progress is being made towards a meaningful Copenhagen accord – The President believes that continued US leadership can be most productive through his participation at the end of the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18th rather than on Dec. 9th. The United States will have representation in Copenhagen throughout the negotiating process by State Department negotiators and Cabinet officials…