Obama Welcomes Conferees to Schwarzenegger’s Global Climate Summit [w/video]
Conferees were greeted with an unannounced video welcome from president-elect Barack Obama, which, according to reports, received a standing ovation from those in the Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton.
Schwarzenegger’s bold leadership on the environment getting bolder
The Schwarzenegger-hosted summit is virtually unprecedented in its scope of multilevel governance. It also comes at a time when the California governor is taking aggressive leadership on the environment by issuing executive orders that increase the state’s renewable energy requirement and that order state agencies to begin preparing for sea-level rise resulting from global warming.
In this two-day event, he plans to join Illinois and Wisconsin in signing agreements with two Indonesian and four Brazilian states to work on tropical forest preservation.
Schwarzenegger also will issue a declaration endorsed by 12 U.S. governors, along with regional representatives from Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia and Mexico, to share technology and cooperate on reducing global-warming emissions from high-polluting industries.
The multi-national flavor of the event is striking, even though many foreign nationals declined invitations. Margot Roosevelt writes at the L.A. Times:
“Schwarzenegger had invited all 49 other U.S. governors, but only four plan to attend part of the conference: Republican Charlie Crist of Florida and Democrats Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Jim Doyle of Wisconsin. In addition, seven others have said they will add their names to the declaration.
Of 31 governors of Mexican states, only Sonora’s accepted. Of 10 Canadian premiers invited, only one, from Manitoba, will be at the conference. None of the six Australian premiers, nor any top regional politicians from India or China accepted Schwarzenegger’s invitation. But three Brazilian governors and two Indonesian governors will be present.
From a global-warming perspective, it may be fortunate that not all of the 1,400 people Schwarzenegger invited are planning to attend. The Associated Press calculated that the full list would have emitted more than 2,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide in air travel alone.”
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