CNN "American Morning" - Transcript
Interview
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ROBERTS: It's 42 minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the Most News in the Morning.
The clock is ticking as President Obama steps up the pressure in the showdown over climate change. Right now he is in Copenhagen, Denmark to try to shake loose a stalemate.
And this morning there are reports that the U.S. and China have moved a quote, "step forward" to striking a possible deal. Joining me now with the latest form Copenhagen is Democratic Representative Ed Markey from Massachusetts. He's the chairman of the House select committee on energy independence and global warming.
Congressman Markey, do you think you will be able to get a deal here? Time is running short. REP. ED MARKEY, (D) MASSACHUSETTS: Well, I think that the negotiators will take as much time as they need. This is obviously a very complex negotiation. Every country in the world is affected by it. It's the most complex negotiation in the history of the planet.
So if it takes a little more time in order to reach an agreement, I think it's going to be well worth the extra effort.
ROBERTS: Just a little while ago President Obama had about a 55- minute long bilateral meeting with the Chinese Premier Hu Jintao. After that there seemed to be some movement and negotiating teams have been now been broken into two.
You have bilateral negotiations between the U.S. and China, and then you have broader negotiations. What happened during that meeting, do you know?
MARKEY: Obviously there are issues that relate to transparency, that relate to the amount of commitment that is going to be made to the developing nations of the world.
But the issues have narrowed. And without question, the United States and China are the central parties here in bringing this agreement ultimately to a conclusion.
And so the rest of the world now awaits this discussion, but I know that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton are right now intensely involved in the discussions towards the goal of ultimately producing a positive result.
ROBERTS: The sticking point between the United States and China is China's reluctance to be transparent in verification in its attempts to mitigate its emissions of greenhouse gases. Now China did move towards resolving that impasse. Do you know if there has been a change in that?
MARKEY: Well, that's obviously one of the key subjects still being discussed. There are promises being made to every country in the world. And it's important that those promises be kept.
And so as a result, transparency is a central issue. And that is what -- the effort is being made right now to achieve some progress on it so that there is transparency sufficient to ensure that the rest of the world is actually provided with the promises that are being made to them.
ROBERTS: Yes, very early this morning in Copenhagen, because the meetings didn't break up until 3:00 a.m. there in Europe, Secretary of State Clinton held out a carrot saying ok, the United States is prepared to fully become a partner in this fund to help developing countries mitigate their greenhouse gas emission. It calls for a $10 billion fund by 2012, expanding to a hundred billion by 2020.
But already you're getting some resistance to that here at home. Congressman Joe Barton of Texas said quote, "I guess when you're this close to the North Pole this time of year, the spirit of giving takes over. But nobody back home -- the ones who pay our bills -- has told me that they've asked Santa for lower living standards this Christmas so Third World diplomats could be happy in Copenhagen."
Are you going to have a problem getting that -- that prospect through Congress? And the Republicans are threatening to say we might just hold up funding here.
REP. ED MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Look at the people in the United States give every single day of the year. $1 billion a day is sent overseas to purchase oil from other countries; $350 billion a year; that's half of our entire trade deficit.
What this is all about in the United States is cutting our dependence upon imported oil dramatically, telling OPEC that we are not going to allow to you hold us hostage any longer, telling Exxon Mobil we're not going to allow you to use American consumers in order to provide you with those huge windfall profits.
And we're also going to tell other nations in the world that we are going to create millions of clean energy jobs in our country so that we are no longer dependent upon imported oil from OPEC, but we're also not substituting it with something that says we're going to have made in China be the sign on the imported new renewable energy technologies.
ROBERTS: Right, I know...
MARKEY: That's our challenge. And these people who are -- who want to -- to have us continue on that path represent a position that obviously the oil industry and OPEC want us to continue on, but this opportunity for us is too great to ignore because then we begin to break out dependence upon imported oil, cut our trade deficit in half and create millions of new jobs here in America.
ROBERTS: Congressman, I know you've got to get back to the negotiations. Just real quick, if you would, on a scale of 1-10, what do you think the chances are for a deal here at Copenhagen?
MARKEY: Well, I will tell you one thing, the Obama administration won on a message of hope and throughout this entire conference every country in the world right now is praying for his success in this negotiation.
And I do believe and I'm optimistic that at the end of the day -- and it might even be tomorrow, that we will have an outcome.
ROBERTS: All right.
MARKEY: Which begins the process of ending the threat of catastrophic global warming.
ROBERTS: Ok, no predictions, but at least some hope there. Congressman Ed Markey, it's good to talk to you thank so much.
MARKEY: Thank you, thanks for having me on. ROBERTS: All right.
CHETRY: All right, well, just in time for the holidays and all of those holiday parties, Sanjay Gupta, the good doctor is going to join us with which booze hurts the most the next day.
Forty-eight minutes after the hour.
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