President Barack Obama delivers remarks during a morning plenary session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, December 18, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
In cooperation with other U.S. Government agencies, USAID plays a key technical leadership role supporting the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations on issues of relevance to developing countries (e.g. technology cooperation, adaptation, and REDD+).
In 2009, the international community came together at the climate conference in Copenhagen where Parties took a meaningful and unprecedented step forward with the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord is the product of a collaborative effort by both developed and developing countries. It outlines key elements essential for a long term solution to climate change and is an important step towards meeting the global challenge of climate change.
At the end of 2010, Parties continued discussions in Cancun, Mexico, and made unprecedented progress under the UNFCCC to combat climate change. As a result, all of the major economies of the world – for the first time – made specific commitments to mitigate national emissions of greenhouse gases, and to ensure accountability and international transparency. The international community also decided to launch new efforts to promote clean technologies, mobilize financing to address climate change, reduce deforestation, and boost climate adaptation.
The U.S. remains committed to engaging with our partners around the world to meet the climate and clean energy challenges in a legally binding regime. We need to build the progress made over the last two years at the climate conference in Durban, South Africa (“COP 17”) in November-December.
