US climate chief’s goal: ‘Set in motion’ climate work over next five years

President Obama’s top climate negotiator on Thursday said the U.S.’s goal is to put in place the climate action strategies included in last year’s international climate change accord within the next five years.

“Five years from now, we need to have set in motion all of the pieces the president has talked about,” Jonathan Pershing, the U.S.’s special envoy for climate change, said at the Climate Action 2016 conference in Washington. 

{mosads}Speaking during a discussion on sustainability, Pershing acknowledged the Paris agreement’s climate mechanisms — countries’ greenhouse gas reduction goals, industry efforts to cut its emissions, financing for sustainable development — won’t have changed the course of climate change by 2021. 

But he said that work should at least be up and running by then. 

“They won’t yet have delivered the change we will want, but within five years we should see concrete evidence that those are in place and working, and working effectively,” he said.

Officials from around the world, including Secretary of State John Kerry, signed the Paris climate agreement last month with the hope of seeing it take effect as early as next year. 

Pershing, who took over as climate envoy in early April, said then that world leaders had raised concerns about the U.S.’s ability to follow through on its climate commitments. President Obama has said the U.S. will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent to 28 percent by 2025 under the deal. 

The U.S., Pershing insisted at the time, will be able to implement its climate work despite domestic political differences. Mogens Lykketoft, the president of the United Nations General Assembly, said Thursday policymakers need to begin focusing more on climate work regardless of their political goals. 

“This is about government taking the courageous decisions,” he said sitting alongside Pershing. 

“This is about politicians, within the next five years, at least, thinking as much or more about the next generation as the next general election.”