U.N. climate talks in Bonn make limited progress, says Environmental Defense Fund

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Annie Petsonk, apetsonk@edf.org, 202-365-3237
Jennifer Andreassen, jandreassen@edf.org, 202-288-4867

BONN, June 11 – “The U.N. talks made limited progress overall, but plenty of conflicts remain,” Annie Petsonk, international counsel for Environmental Defense Fund, said at the conclusion of U.N. climate change talks here today.

“The good news is that we moved forward on important forestry and land use issues that can play a pivotal role in reducing and preventing future greenhouse gas emissions,” said Petsonk.

“The discouraging news is that even as the BP oil disaster continued to unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, some oil-exporting countries –including Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait and Qatar – were so desperate to protect the oil industry that they blocked efforts to expand studies of the climate change problem.”

While there were noisy disagreements in the main meeting halls, in quieter corners many delegates from both industrialized and some developing nations expressed their determination to find paths forward, whether in the U.N. or in parallel processes. ” U.S. leadership - in particular by President Obama and the U.S. Senate - has the potential to be the real game-changer,” said Petsonk. “In the eyes of much of the rest of the world, American leadership could unlock a low-carbon growth pathway that would reinvigorate many nations’ economies, including America’s own,” Petsonk said.