[Vision2020] Schwarzenegger, Gore At Climate Meeting

[Ted Moffett]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070924/pl_nm/climate_un_dc&printer=1;_ylt=AoqTvlozFJBJi4zfk3DNXcQb.3QA

Schwarzenegger, Gore add star power to climate meet

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment CorrespondentMon Sep 24, 1:10 AM ET

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Vice President Al Gore are
set to join world leaders for a U.N. meeting on Monday aimed at spurring
global negotiations on how to cool a warming planet.

Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder and movie star who has pushed for
environmental reforms in California, acknowledged that rich and poor
countries have differing responsibilities when it comes to global warming,
but said it is time to stop the blame game.

"The time has come to stop looking back at the Kyoto Protocol,"
Schwarzenegger said in remarks prepared for delivery. "The consequences of
global climate change are so pressing it doesn't matter who was responsible
for the past.

"What matters is who is answerable for the future. And that means all of
us."

The one-day gathering is meant to send a "strong political message" about
the urgency of the problem of curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that
contribute to climate change, according to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

It is the first of three U.S. events on climate change this week that are
likely to focus attention on whether Washington can make good on its pledge
to take a leading role in curbing the emissions that cause global warming.

But it is not a negotiating session. That will come in December in Bali,
Indonesia, where climate experts will try to craft a successor to the
emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Gore, the former presidential candidate and creator of the global warming
documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," is also to address the U.N. meeting.

U.S. President George W. Bush will not speak at this gathering, but he will
dine with Ban after it ends.

Bush has rejected the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement that
requires 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 5
percent from 1990 levels by 2012.

He contends the accord unfairly burdens rich countries while exempting
developing countries like China and India and that it will cost U.S. jobs.

Developing countries have said it is unfair to ask them to curb their
emissions as their economies grow while industrialized nations have been
polluting for decades.

Bush does plan to speak at a two-day Washington meeting at the State
Department on Thursday and Friday, a gathering of "major economies" -- the
world's biggest global warming contributors -- on energy security and
climate change.

A third conference, the nongovernmental Clinton Global Initiative, will
convene in New York from Wednesday through Friday to discuss climate change
with participants from business, academia, entertainment and environmental
organizations.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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