Obama to address climate conference

President Obama will address an event at the ongoing United Nations climate talks in South Africa via video on Wednesday with remarks that will laud the legacy of the late environmental activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

The event about forest protection and “green growth” — which is also a tribute to Maathai — will be hosted by the group Avoided Deforestation Partners, and is slated to include a suite of top officials from the U.N. and other nations.

{mosads}Maathai, who died in September, launched the Green Belt Movement, an organization that paid African women to plant millions of trees around the continent. Obama praised Maathai in a statement upon her death.

The Wednesday event is one of many forums unfolding on the sidelines of the formal negotiations at the U.N. summit.

Obama’s appearance by video will be in stark contrast to the fractious 2009 U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, which Obama attended personally and where he helped craft a voluntary and non-binding agreement that, while derided as weak and incomplete, helped salvage the conference from total failure.

But hopes for a binding international emissions deal have faded amid persistent disagreements over issues such as whether, or to what degree, China and other big developing nations will agree to binding emissions targets.

Domestically, climate legislation has died on Capitol Hill, but the administration is touting steps it is taking under its existing powers, such as major increases in auto mileage standards.

However, negotiators at U.N. climate summits are working on more incremental steps, such as trying to implement the planned Green Climate Fund to help developing nations battle and adapt to climate change, making further progress on a major initiative to curb tropical deforestation, and other steps.

{mossecondads}Obama, in his last substantial remarks on climate, said in Australia last month that policies to curb carbon emissions bring economic benefits, but acknowledged that crafting an international deal that imposes commitments on China and India will be a “tough slog.”

E2 has much more on those comments here.
 
A press release touting the Wednesday event in South Africa — which is co-hosted by Jane Goodall – lists attendees including U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Development Program Administrator Helen Clark, United Nations Environment Program Executive Director Achim Steiner, South African Agriculture Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, and many other officials.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Clinton are also slated to appear via video, the press release states.

Several senior administration officials are attending the broader U.N. conference in person, including Todd Stern, the State Department’s special envoy for climate change, and Gary Guzy, the deputy director of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.