Hillary Clinton

Will Google’s fight with China stymie climate negotiations?

If any progress is to be made in the global fight against climate change — whether via diplomatic negotiations or cleantech partnerships — it will only happen through cooperation between the U.S. and China.  But the potential for collaboration of any kind took a big blow this past week thanks to the Google fracas.  Reports […]

The Climate Post: Rumors, intimations, and a deal

First Things First: Denmark’s most widely sought-after exports this week, at least until several minutes ago, were intimation and rumor. World leaders have been locked in negotiation on the second floor of the Bella Center, trying to strike a political “Copenhagen Accord,” various drafts of which (confirmed or unconfirmed) have circulated for the past several […]

‘Transparency’ is a hot issue in Copenhagen — but what does it mean?

Sergio Barbosa Serra. Photo courtesy Brazilian governmentCOPENHAGEN — I just had a cappuccino with Sergio Barbosa Serra, Brazil’s ambassador of climate change and one of the country’s top delegates at the Copenhagen talks. We discussed what’s going to get hashed out over the next 36 hours of the U.N. climate conference. He boiled the challenge […]

The Climate Post: Smalls steps and giant leaps

First Things First: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited India last weekend to inch forward collaboration on regional security, global business, nuclear power, and climate change. U.S. papers played up the real-time meltdown between Clinton and Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh. The two appeared before cameras on a trip to a new, energy-efficient office building […]

Memo to Hillary’s science czar: organic ag isn’t a ‘myth’

Is organic farming productive enough to feed billions of people–or will it always be a yuppie niche in a food system increasingly dependent on agrichemicals, massive animal factories, synthetic fertilizers, and biotechnology? Nina Fedoroff, the State Department’s chief technology adviser, propounds the latter view. A trained scientist with ties to the biotech industry, Fedoroff thinks […]

Unforgiving math

"This not a matter of politics or morality or right or wrong. It is simply the unforgiving math of accumulating emissions."

-- U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern, accompanying Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on her first visit to China

The game plan: partnership with China

Conventional wisdom seems to be that Obama needs to secure a domestic climate bill and then take that bill to international climate talks in Copenhagen this December as a demonstration of good faith. I very, very much doubt there will be a climate bill signed into law by Dec. But there’s something else that the […]

The players: Obama’s people

Obama’s green team Joe Romm says, “I honestly don’t know if it is politically possible to preserve a livable climate — but if it is, these are the people to make it happen.” I don’t know if I’d go that far, but Obama has certainly put together a team capable of great things. Coordinating is […]

Clinton taps Todd Stern as her climate envoy

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today announced that Todd Stern will serve as her special envoy for climate change, signaling that the issue will be a key one for her department.

In this role, Stern will be the country's lead climate negotiator at the United Nations and other international summits.

"President Obama and Secretary Clinton have left no doubt that a new day is dawning in the U.S. approach to climate change and clean energy. The time for denial, delay and dispute is over," said Stern at a press conference today announcing his appointment.

"Containing climate change will require nothing less than transforming the global economy from a high-carbon to a low-carbon energy base," he said. "But done right, this can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and become a driver for economic growth in the 21st century."

Stern, who served as an adviser to the Obama transition team on environmental issues, was an assistant and staff secretary to Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1998. He was the senior White House negotiator for the Kyoto negotiations and coordinated the administration's Initiative on Global Climate Change from 1997 to 1999. From 1999 to 2001, he worked at the Department of Treasury as an adviser to the secretary. He was an adjunct lecturer at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and a fellow at the German Marshall Fund after leaving government.

Stern now works as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focuses on climate change and environmental issues. He drafted a proposal for creating a National Energy Council, an idea published in CAP's Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President. He is also a partner at the law firm of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, where he is the vice chair of the firm's Public Policy and Strategy practice.

Stern's background on both the climate issue and the inner workings of the White House signal that he's likely to play a big role in international negotiations for the State Department, and that it will be a key issue under the new Secretary of State.

Clinton echoed as much in her remarks today: "With the appointment today of a special envoy, we are sending an unequivocal message that the United States will be energetic, focused, strategic and serious about addressing global climate change and the corollary issue of clean energy."

It's an open question, however, how Stern will coordinate his actions with Carol Browner, the White House's top adviser for climate and energy issues.