With Obama to Take Office, World Looks to U.S. on Environment

With the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama coming early next year, the world has turned its collectively eyes to the Unites States to lead the charge on protecting the world environment. Said Senator John Kerry, a former presidential candidates himself, "It’s a very exciting time. It’s a moment we have been waiting for, many of us, for some period of time; we intend to pick up the baton and really run with it." Kerry added that Obama has been "very, very clear that after eight years of obstruction and delay and denial, the U.S. is going to rejoin the world community in tackling this global challenge."

UN talks on the matter will occur in Poznan, Poland from December 1-12, and though no member of Obama’s transition team will be at the talks, Kerry himself will be there as an observer. Kerry’s message? "America is back, we are back in a position of participation, of respecting views and having real discussions and trying to find the best framework for all of us." Kerry refers, of course, to the outgoing Bush administration’s walking away from the Kyoto protocol, which left the U.S., the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, out of the talks about the framework for stemming human-produces environmental threats.

In a video message on the issue, Obama notes that "Now is the time to confront this challenge once and for all. Delay is no longer and option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response. The stakes are too high. The consequences, too serious." Obama’s message is clear, but some experts expect that overcoming the country’s dependence – bordering on addiction – to cheap fuel sources, will make a transition away from polluting fossil fuels difficult. Said Elliott Diringer, vice president for international strategy at the Pew Center for Global climate change, "For the first time in many years you will have an administration prepared to negotiate a commitment on the part of the U.S. Without that there are no prospects for an agreement. Will the world be disappointed, that depends on expectations and I think expectations in some places are too high." Speaking of the challenge of overcoming the aforementioned dependence on fossil fuels, Diringer notes, "It won’t be easy but it can be done."