Cancun: Talks Wind Down

International Climate Talks Wind Down

December 10, 2010 - This week, representatives of some 190 nations continued to discuss and debate a potential international climate change agreement. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged participants at the meeting, which is being held in Cancun, Mexico, to agree to next steps toward climate action even if they don’t achieve a perfect accord. “The stability of the global economy, the well-being of your citizens, the health of our planet, all this and more depend on you,” he told the Cancun participants.

At the last international climate change talks, in Copenhagen in December of last year, the United States and other countries pledged to reduce their CO2 emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. But since then, the U.S. Senate failed to pass a climate change and clean energy bill, which calls the question, can the U.S. fulfill the commitments it made in Copenhagen?

Bob Baugh, executive director of the AFL-CIO Industrial Union Council, has been blogging from the Cancun climate talks for the Apollo Alliance website. In the following post, he talks about the myriad of actions the United States can take to meet its Copenhagen commitment, even without a comprehensive national clean energy and climate policy.

Meeting Our Commitments {continued}