For the US, ‘Copenhagen or bust’

CANTERBURY, England - In just a couple short months, we will watch as more than 15,000 officials from 192 countries convene in Copenhagen, Denmark, and attempt to tackle what is arguably the most urgent international issue of our time – climate change.

With the United Nations Summit on Climate Change in New York and the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh now events of the past, the push for serious action in Copenhagen continues to grow.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed importance of coming to an agreement in Copenhagen with his closing remarks, “There is little time left. The opportunity and responsibility to avoid catastrophic climate change is in your hands.”

In the United Kingdom, media attention concerning the summit has shifted as well.
While reports previously focused on the economic implications of new climate-change legislation worldwide, the number of stories concerning the United States and its
attitude toward the issue has increased.

More specifically, there seems to be growing concern about the fate of the Kerry-Boxer bill in the Senate as a means of gauging how serious the US is about taking on the issue in an urgent manner.

BBC News environmental correspondent Richard Black wrote in a recent article about U.S. involvement in dealing with greenhouse gas emissions and the recent push for the Kerry-Boxer bill, quoting Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute who said, “It’s fundamental because it’s the way in which the world can get a sense of how serious the U.S. is in tackling climate change and what level of effort it’s ready to undertake.”

But this concern about U.S. involvement in reducing emissions is not uniquely British.
There seems to be a growing worldwide anxiety that the U.S. does not take this issue
seriously enough.

“I think the criticism of the U.S. has been worldwide on this issue,” said one French student at the University of Kent, “that the current U.S. attitude toward climate change is not serious enough. This is a serious problem that requires serious action on part of all nations. As one of the most powerful countries in the world, it is imperative that the United States does more.”

While all of this is, of course, only speculation, it will certainly be interesting to watch during the next few months how attitudes continue to change and pressure grows on nations such as the U.S. to “step it up” when it comes to climate change policies.

To quote Gordon Brown from a recent Newsweek article, “Copenhagen or bust!”