20 November 2008: Reacting to a statement by US President-elect Barack Obama, Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), noted that the statement “confirmed that in the coming months a fundamentally new climate policy will define the position of the US.”

Steiner stressed the importance of Obama’s statement, underlining that it would not only affect the climate conventions but was an indication that “in spite of – or rather because of – the current financial crisis, a greener economic policy is finding new momentum.” Talking about the upcoming Poznan negotiations in a speech, via video to the Governors’ Global Climate Summit, which convened from 18-19 November 2008, in Los Angeles, California, US, President-elect Obama stated that the US “will once again engage vigorously in
these negotiations and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change.” He also outlined plans to institute a cap and trade scheme and to reduce US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. [UNEP Press Release]