Todd Stern To Be Named As Clinton's Climate Change Envoy

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday appointed a special envoy for climate change, vowing that the Obama administration would restore America's credentials and leadership in shaping environmental policy.

Pledging that the United States would play a primary role in international efforts to stem global warming, Clinton named Todd Stern, a former White House assistant who was the chief U.S. negotiator at the Kyoto Protocol talks in her husband's administration, to the post.

"American leadership is essential to meeting the challenges of the 21st century, and chief among those is the complex, urgent and global threat of climate change," she said at a State Department ceremony held shortly after President Barack Obama announced new policies to allow states greater latitude in limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

Sterns' appointment, she said, sends "an unequivocal message that the United States will be energetic, focused, strategic and serious about addressing global climate change and the corollary issue of clean energy."

"The urgency of the global climate crisis must not be underestimated," Clinton said. "Nor should the science behind it or the facts on the ground be ignored or dismissed. The time for realism and action is now."

The Bush administration had come under fire for failing to act on climate change, walking away from the Kyoto Protocol on grounds it favored large developing nations like China and India, and refusing to allow states to bolster some environmental regulations.

"The time for denial, delay and dispute is over," Stern said in accepting the job. "The time for the United States to take up its rightful place at the negotiating table is here."

Stern will serve as the chief U.S. negotiator at United Nations talks on climate change including an upcoming session in Copenhagen as well as with individual nations and groups.

Prior to his appointment, Stern was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a partner in the WilmerHale law firm. He served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, first at the White House, handling the Kyoto Protocol and follow-up talks in Buenos Aires and coordinating the president's Initiative on Global Climate Change.

He later worked at Treasury, where he was a senior adviser to the secretary, and after his Clinton administration stint, Stern taught at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Comments

[MyTake]

01:31 PM on 01/27/2009

Hoo-Wah! Another appointment from the Council on Foreign Relations. CFR was the transition team for the Obama administration and have contributed 90% of his administrative appointments from their 3000 membership roster. This really speaks to broad inclusion of the American public!

But wait, it gets better. Here is a short clip for a not-so-well-thought-of U.S. politician who failed to disclose that he was a director of CFR when he ran for office: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XOAk-7F1EVU .

Just as the Wall Street Banker's "gamed" the stock market and the American economy, now their population will be "gamed" again by the phony climate change scam. When Tillerson (Exxon/Mobile) shouts out that a carbon tax would be a great idea and when David Rockefeller is Chairman Emeritus of the CFR that donated all those people to this government, you have to know you are being taken to the cleaners again.

It is nice that they have dropped global warming phrases in favor of climate change because we are in a period of global cooling!

[Exusian]

04:12 PM on 01/27/2009

No, we are not in a period of global cooling:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/01/08/cold-hard-facts/
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/stupid-is-as-stupid-does/

Your tinfoil hat is warning you about the Council for Foreign Relations, yet you can't tell when someone is feeding you just plain bull shite about cooling trends.

Go figure.

[ConservativeHippie]

05:38 PM on 01/27/2009

I'm suprised your comment was posted, just too much truth for wingnuts of either side to swallow. CFR, the proud sponsor of the Demopublican party that's ruining America.

[ceindependence]

09:50 AM on 01/27/2009

Gee, I guess we can count on Russia, China, India, Saudia Arabia, Hugo Chavez, Mexico, Canada and Liberia to hop right on the Kyoto program. I'm sure that I left some country out. Not to worry, France will support Kyoto and England may support Kyoto so the world can be saved. Climate Change will be adverted and we can feel good about ourselves and receive respect from the world.

I know, I know you guys will call me names but can anyone explain whose carbon footprint made the glaciers melt and produce the mountains in North Carolina, Georgia and Virginia?

Now lets see: CO2 was at 250 ppm in1850 and went to 380 ppm in 2005 due to our oil using machines. 380 minus 250 is 130 ppm. 130/1,000,000 equals a change of .00013 in 155 years. Therefore if my quart of milk which cost $2.65 yesterday went up by .013%, it would cost me today, $2.653445. Gee a third of a penny after 155 years would just bust my budget and be the end of the world.

Now with the accepted understanding that the earth is covered 70% by water with an average of 5 miles deep. Does anyone here grasp the energy necessary to heat water? Your telling me that an increase of .00013 in CO2 is going to destroy the world. Maybe the term Czar is correct! Let the name calling begin!

[Exusian]

11:23 AM on 01/27/2009

Gee, I love it when the math-challenged attempt to use the dilution argument.

Never mind that 99.5% of the atmosphere is transparent to light, both incoming sunlight, and outgoing infrared, which means it is not even part of the equation, at least until it comes to turning absorbed infrared light energy into kinetic energy through molecular collision with excited greenhouse gas molecules.

Never mind the fact that all greenhouse gasses combined, including water vapour, make up less than 0.5% of the atmosphere.

And never mind the fact that that 0.5% makes Earth's average surface temperature 33C/59F warmer than it would be if greenhouse gasses were not present.

In other words, never mind the bogus dilution argument, it is merely a slight of hand meant to distract your attention from the fact that the burning of fossil carbon fuels has increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, not by a math-challenged and disingenuous .013%, but by nearly 38%. Or that methane has gone up by 150%. And, thanks to their warming, that even water vapour is now rising.

[Exusian]

12:00 PM on 01/27/2009

Gee, I love it when the math-challenged attempt to use the dilution argument.

Never mind that 99.5% of the atmosphere is transparent to light, both incoming sunlight, and outgoing infrared, which means it is not even part of the equation, at least until it comes to turning absorbed infrared light energy into kinetic energy through molecular collision.

Never mind the fact that all greenhouse gasses combined, including water vapour, make up less than 0.5% of the atmosphere.

Never mind the fact that that 0.5% makes Earth's average surface temperature 33C/59F warmer than it would be if greenhouse gasses were not present.

In other words, never mind the bogus dilution argument, it is merely a slight of hand meant to distract your attention from the fact that the burning of fossil carbon fuels has increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, not by a math-challenged and disingenuous 0.013%, but by nearly 38%. Or that methane has gone up by 150%. And, thanks to their warming, that even water vapour is now rising.

[realpolitic]

09:40 PM on 01/27/2009

Well, even though most climate change deniers, like ceindependence, do not have any idea what they are talking of, they always say what they say with a certain arrogance. I guess it is the superiority of the ignorant.

[mamacat]

09:02 PM on 01/26/2009

It looks like the Ship of State is finally turning into the right direction, and away from going over the waterfall. Bravo Obama, Bravo Biden, Bravo Hillary, and please keep doing what you have started.

[kingcityguru]

07:48 AM on 01/27/2009

What a silly waste of time and money. The climate will change as it has from the beginning weather/whether we do anything about it or not.

By the way, what happened to global warming?

[fayemac]

07:17 PM on 01/26/2009

I just worry that letting the states tighten the ristrictions is going to hurt everyday people that cant aford expensive new "clean cars". If they tighten the smog restictions anymore my car wont pass smog and I wont be able to get to work. They might want to wait on these things until people can start building up the bucks to pay for it. Just like everything else in California its tooooo expensive.

[mamacat]

08:58 PM on 01/26/2009

My understanding is that the restrictions will apply only to new cars sold in the state, so any of us with old cars will not be effected any more than we already are.

The only way to economically force fuel economy and emission standards in the right direction is to require them of all new cars sold in the state. California and the other states that want the manufacturers to improve their products make up a large enough slice of the pie that most cars sold in the U. S. will have to be made to the new standards, although there will be a few exceptions.

By the way, if Bush and the others who blocked better CAFE standards had not stood in the way years ago, our automobile manufacturers, and the whole economy, would be in better shape today. When oil got near $150/barrel, consumers instantly started abandoning their low-mpg SUVs.

California is indeed expensive, but I think that it is because the climate is so good. Who would choose to live in minus 30 degree temperatures, if they could live cheaply in California? Perhaps that is why so many have chosen to live in Nevada and Arizona instead - they are not in California, but the temps are better than most places in the U.S.

[nick1936]

04:22 PM on 01/26/2009

Now transfer those creeps from the Bush Adm who burrowed themselves in EPA to got study climate change from the South Pole.

[paul m]

04:04 PM on 01/26/2009

We are missing the point and the boat on the opportunity that the down turn is presenting.

It is disappointing to see that our leaders are not getting it - look at all the money they have committed to try and kick start the old consumer base paradigm that got us in to this dilemma and which is relentlessly driving our CO2 upwards.(Climate change envoy calls for state aid to create low-carbon economy http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jan/25/climate-change-summit-global-international)

You can see how it happens, with the mad panic that has engulfed us all as we stare over the cliff at the gaping depression sucking us in.

This year is it!

If we don't switch our bail out packages and infrastructure spending towards obtaining the target for 100% CO2 reduction. then we are hosed for sure. There won't be a second chance. We will have wasted the money, the political effort and the time (the oh so precious time) correcting the more urgent at the expense of the most essential.(Climate change in 2009: the defining issue http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/email/climate-change-in-2009-the-defining-issue)

It must be fate that Obama arrived at this moment. If he is able to realize that this is the most crucial point in the history of mankind and is able to engage the international effort needed, then there is hope.

God bless America.

[NL207]

03:32 PM on 01/26/2009

"He served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, first at the White House, handling the Kyoto Protocol and follow-up talks in Buenos Aires "

Translation for all you intellectually challenged liberals: Stern is a colossal failure.


The Senate voted 95-0 on July 25, 1997 against even voting on ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=105&session=1&vote=00205
Bush wasn't President then and NO DEMOCRAT and no Republican voted for Kyoto.

Whatever else Matthew Lee is, he is either a prevaricator or an ignoramus and possibly both.

[independentjukebox]

05:29 PM on 01/26/2009

why are you still fighting the 90's ? .

[realpolitic]

06:19 PM on 01/26/2009

So liberals are intellectually challenged and you are the one who swears climate science is all some grand socialist experiment to redistribute wealth. Did you get that idea from the back of a cereal box?

[JulieSA]

02:55 PM on 01/26/2009

"The Bush administration had come under fire for failing to act on climate change, walking away from the Kyoto Protocol..."

No. The Kyoto protocol was voted against unanimously in the Senate under the Clinton admin. If this new envoy is the one who negotiated it, he didn't do a very good job, did he? I don't want my taxes to go to this guy's salary.

[mamacat]

09:23 PM on 01/26/2009

Representatives of the U.S. signed the Kyoto Protocol on Nov. 12, 1998, but the Clinton Administration never submitted it to the Senate to be voted on, so we were not obligated to its terms.

In late March, 2001, Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol.

In February , 2002, Bush announced that the U.S. would rely on voluntary actions to reduce green house gas emissions - in other words, nothing would be done by the government, and the race to build ever bigger gas hogs and Hummers was off and running.

[LDnearthesea]

01:31 PM on 01/26/2009

Take that, Senator Imhofe!

[OneVoiceInACrowd]

01:14 PM on 01/26/2009

bravo- finally getting on the right track.

[synonys]

12:44 PM on 01/26/2009

Although Obama said otherwise during the primaries, he hold the Clinton administration in high regards.

[Hopalongpoppyseed]

12:42 PM on 01/26/2009

Czar is a deeply anti-democratic word that demonstrates the belief that problems cannot be solved by democratic structures. There are no Czars in America, only authoritarian minded commentators. In a democracy, people who head agencies are usually called secretaries or directors. When it comes to Caesars, I am with Brutus.

[mamacat]

09:07 PM on 01/26/2009

I have never said so publicly before, but I have thought what you have just said. I do not like to have the term Czar applied to the head of any agency.
Why do you suppose that Americans prefer dictatorial terminology to democratic terminology? I find it to be a disturbing trait.