1Sky Campaign Director to Obama: A full court press needed on climate change

1Sky’s Gillian Caldwell says domestic action is the key to securing global action to tackle climate change

September 22, 2009

Contact: Alex Posorske; (301) 270-4550 x230; alex@1sky.org

Takoma Park, Md. – 1Sky Campaign Director Gillian Caldwell applauded President Obama for addressing the challenges of climate change during his speech today at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in New York, but urged the President to take a much more active role in ensuring the US enacts bold and comprehensive climate and energy policy before the Copenhagen negotiations in December 2009.

Statement of Gillian Caldwell:

“As we all know, we stand at a critical crossroads in our planet’s history.  We need a binding global agreement to tackle the looming crisis of climate change before it is too late, and the prospects of a global deal are much better if the United States – a leading emitter of global warming pollution worldwide for decades – takes binding action now to clean up its act and set us on the course towards the clean energy jobs of the 21st century.

While it’s heartening to see President Obama more engaged than any previous president on this issue, he has so much more to bring to the table and we need his active personal engagement now.

We need even more time and energy from President Obama and his administration if we are going to pass bold legislation that maximizes clean energy jobs for America, takes serious steps to cut global warming pollution by 2020, and transitions us away from coal and other dirty fuels of the past and toward the clean energy of the future.

Real action means using real political capital to push a clean energy jobs bill through the United States Senate in the coming months.  That, more than any speech at the United Nations, will show the world that this time we are serious, and that the United States will lead once again on the global stage.

President Obama has another key opportunity next week, when we expect to see a strong draft climate bill from Senators Boxer and Kerry on behalf of the Environment and Public Works Committee.  Using the power of his position to advocate for the strongest bill possible in the US Senate this Fall will do more to boost international efforts to address climate change than any single speech could.”