“As the world’s largest economy and the world’s second largest emitter, America bears our share of responsibility in addressing climate change, and we intend to meet that responsibility.”
Hmm, sounds good. The entire world is holding its collective breath right now.
[...] “After months of talk, and two weeks of negotiations, I believe that the pieces of that accord are now clear.”
Months? What happened to the past two decades? What about Kyoto?
[...] “I’m confident that America will fulfill the commitments that we have made: cutting our emissions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, and by more than 80 percent by 2050 in line with final legislation.
[...] “America will be a part of fast-start funding that will ramp up to $10 billion in 2012.”
Same old, same old. Too little, too late.
“We know the fault lines because we’ve been imprisoned by them for years.”
What? Who’s been imprisoned?
“But here is the bottom line: we can embrace this accord, take a substantial step forward, and continue to refine it and build upon its foundation. [...] Or we can again choose delay, falling back into the same divisions that have stood in the way of action for years. And we will be back having the same stale arguments month after month, year after year – all while the danger of climate change grows until it is irreversible.
There is no time to waste. America has made our choice. We have charted our course, we have made our commitments, and we will do what we say. Now, I believe that it’s time for the nations and people of the world to come together behind a common purpose.”
My way or the highway.
The speech we’ve been hoping for? Not quite. Full text here.
