The Foreign Service Journal, February 2008

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21 The timing of the December United Nations climate change conference in Bali, Indonesia, precluded the incorporation of a detailed State Department readout in this month’s coverage. However, our March issue will contain an article from the department detailing the U.S. position on international efforts to address climate change and responding to the Journal ’s February coverage. To set the stage for that response, here is Under Secre- tary for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula J. Dobrian- sky’s Dec. 12, 2007, statement at the Bali conference. That is followed by an announcement of the March 2008 Washington International Renewable Energy Confer- ence, which the Department of State will host. — Steven Alan Honley, Editor Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We commend you for an outstanding presidency and a superbly arranged confer- ence. Your leadership and that of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon are greatly appreciated and have contributed significantly to the COP proceedings. Congratulations to Dr. Pachauri and the Intergovern- mental Panel on Climate Change for their excellent work and Nobel Prize. As the IPCC report reminds us, we are at a defining moment. We must develop a glob- al response that rises to the scale and scope of the chal- lenge before us. The United States is committed to doing its part in this effort. We seek to work together toward a “Bali Roadmap” that will advance negotiations under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and lead by 2009 to a post-2012 arrangement that addresses climate change and strengthens our energy security. A post-2012 arrangement must be environmentally effective and economically sustainable. It also must be flexible. To attract global participation, a future arrangement must be flexible and accommodate a diverse range of national circumstances. We must also develop and bring to market clean energy technologies at costs that coun- tries can justify to their citizens. Emissions are global and the solution, to be effective, will need to be global. We want the world’s largest economies, including the United States, to be part of a global arrangement. An approach in which only some are committed to acting cannot be environmentally effec- tive. We have proposed that a future arrangement contain several elements: Mitigation First, in the area of mitigation, we believe a post-2012 arrangement should contain both a long-term global goal for emissions reductions and national plans that set mea- surable midterm goals. It should include improved mea- surement and accounting systems to track the progress of these efforts. We must reduce emissions from deforestation. We welcome the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, and we are committed to continuing our leader- ship through initiatives such as the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, the President’s Initiative Against Illegal Logging and the Tropical Forest Conservation Act. Adaptation A second critical issue is adaptation, which is an increasing priority both at home and internationally. We F O C U S O N C L I M AT E C H A N G E T HE P OST -B ALI R OADMAP S TATEMENT TO THE T HIRTEENTH S ESSION OF THE C ONFERENCE OF THE P ARTIES TO THE U.N. F RAMEWORK C ONVENTION ON C LIMATE C HANGE