world just signed on to the paris agreement on climate change thanks to american leadership. the question now, is this agreement just paper or will it lead to crucial steps needed to make it something truly historic? and joining me now, todd stern, special envoy for climate change for the u.s. state department. he headed the u.s. negotiating team in paris. mr. stern, you have been at this for six years, if i m not mistaken, for a very long time. and there s been lots of failures along the way and lots of bilateral meetings and lots of things that people thought were going to happen, didn t come together. why did this finally happen in paris? well, thanks, chris, for the question, and i m delighted to be here. look, this is an agreement that has been a long time in the making, as you say. the real start of this whole process was copenhagen in 2009. that didn t work. although something very important happened in that agreement. it started to get countries in a
and now some fresh pickings from the political grapevine. australia s liberals are taking a stand. ahead of a potential climate deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. the australian reports during the ongoing u.n.-led negotiations, the country will not agree to a deal that involves payments from rich countries to developed countries in order to lower emissions, calling the measures, quote, socialism, masquerading as environmentalism. the liberal party in australia, which mopped up in the most recent election, is the country s center right party and has fans over at the conservative heritage foundation here in the u.s. so where does the u.s. stand on all this? special envoy for climate change todd stern said this. the u.s. will be providing or has provided for fiscal year 2013 $2.7 billion in public climate finance to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries.