As United Nations negotiations aim to deliver a new global climate treaty by next year the United States has made it clear it ‘can and will push the climate change agenda’, both at home and on the international stage.
The United States President Barack Obama’s former top adviser on energy and climate change, who will visit Australia next week, is delivering that message.
Heather Zichal, who worked with Barack Obama from his 2008 election campaign until late last year when she resigned as chief climate and energy adviser, said the president viewed action to curb global warming as ”key to his legacy in his second term”.
”The administration will be watching closely to see what other countries are doing to act and what they will be bringing to the table in Paris,” Ms Zichal said, referring to the 2015 climate summit planned for the French capital.
In her first interview with non-US media since leaving the White House last November, she said Mr Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry would keep ”a very constant drumbeat on climate issues in the weeks and years ahead”.
Ms Zichal made it clear President Obama’s administration would closely monitor how nations such as Australia tackle climate change.
Australia’s conservative Liberal-National government has moved to repeal legislation putting a price on carbon in Australia and a range of other climate related moves introduced by the former Labor government.
At the same time the government has said it is committed to cutting Australia’s emissions by five per cent of 2000 levels by 2020, compared with a 17 per cent target by the US on 2005 levels by decade’s end.
While Ms Zichal is not privy to Mr Obama’s view on the Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s promise to eliminate the carbon price, she said governments around the world could expect the US to push a climate change agenda.
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‘This is an area where the US can and should lead,” she said.
”The Secretary of State and the President take this challenge seriously and will be working on a number of levels to engage the international community on this threat.”
Ms Zichal will discuss energy efficiency at the 2XEP Forum on Doubling Energy Productivity at the University Technology Sydney on April 3-4.
One Response
Why should Australians care about what the US President thinks of Tony Abotts environmental Policy?
If Mr Barack Hussien Obama really cared for the Environment he would stop attacking every second country on the planet with his US & Nato War-Machine – its the height of hypocracy to have to listen to him pontificate up on his high horse about these issues when he has brough so much destruction to the Environment – he truly is an Emperor with no clothes…..