President Barack Obama has pledged that the United States “will do more” to tackle the threat of climate change and said the world must do likewise before it is too late.
“Our generation must move towards a global compact to confront a changing climate before it is too late, that is our job, that is our task,” Obama said in a speech in Berlin.
Speaking on a blistering hot day at Brandenburg Gate, Obama said that “peace with justice means refusing to condemn our children to a harsher, less hospitable planet”.
He said Germany, which is fast building up solar, wind and other renewable energies, and Europe, had led in efforts to battle a warming planet, melting ice caps and rising seas.
He said the United States had also doubled renewable energies, boosted fuel efficiency in cars and brought down carbon emissions, but added: “We know we have to do more and we will do more.”
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With a view to developing giants such as China and India, he added: “With a global middle class consuming more energy every day, this must now be an effort of all nations, not just some.
“For the grim alternative affects all nations. More severe storms, more famine and floods, new waves of refugees, coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise.”
Meanwhilel, Russian officials have reacted coldly to the call by Obama to jointly reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles by a third, saying the United States should address Moscow’s concerns over missile defence first.
“How can we take seriously this idea about cuts in strategic nuclear potential while the United States is developing its capabilities” to intercept Russia’s weapons, deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin asked.
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“Clearly, (Russia’s) political leadership cannot take these assurances seriously,” said Rogozin, who oversees the defence sector and the nuclear industry, according to the state-owned Itar-TASS news agency.
“The offence arms race leads to a defence arms race and vice versa,” he said, speaking after a government meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Saint Petersburg that focused on Russia’s defence sector.
His remarks preceded the call on Russia by the US President in Germany to reduce strategic nuclear weapon stockpiles by up to a third, taking them to the 1000-weapon mark.
Although Putin did not react directly to Obama’s proposal, he said at the meeting that Russia would not let its nuclear deterrent be undermined.
He said that Russia is faced with a situation in which countries are developing offensive capabilities by building up mid-range missiles and sophisticated non-nuclear weapons, and while the United States has worked to reconfigure its missile shield, the project is still going ahead.
“We cannot allow the balance of the system of strategic deterrence to be disturbed or the effectiveness of our nuclear force to be decreased,” Putin said.
Russian diplomats have additionally told Washington ahead of Obama’s speech that cuts should include other nuclear armed states, not just Russia and the United States, according to Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov.
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