US won't speed up emissions cuts: top climate negotiator (Domestic politics will not allow it)

US won't speed up emissions cuts: top climate negotiator

By Marlowe Hood

PARIS (AFP) — Domestic politics will not allow the United States to deepen it commitment for cutting carbon pollution over the next decade despite growing international pressure, Washington's top climate negotiator said Sunday.

"We are jumping as high as the political system will tolerate," Todd Stern said, rejecting China's call this week for rich nations to slash greenhouse gases by 40 percent before 2020, compared to 1990 levels.

"The 40 percent the Chinese have talked about is not realistic," the US Special Envoy for Climate Change told AFP on the eve of a two-day climate meeting of ministers from the world's most powerful economies.

A summit of Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) members -- which together account for 80 percent of global CO2 emissions -- is scheduled for July in Italy, probably on the heels of a G8 summit there, Stern said.

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