By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

U.S Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was reserved in her choice of words today at the Brookings Institution as she reflected on her recent bipartisan trip to China to discuss the communist country’s climate efforts.

“This trip was very important for us because the U.S and China are the biggest emitters of gases and we have to come to terms in order for us to come to a multilateral agreement in Copehagen.” said Pelosi

The U.S delegation made the May trip after an invitation from the Chinese government. The meeting may have also given the U.S an ally against the growing threat that North Korea poses since its alleged nuclear and missile tests.

Bruce Klingner, an analyst for the Heritage Foundation, said that the Obama administration is “trying to press China to be less obstructionist, to allow for a greater punitive measure against North Korean government agencies.”

Why this (the climate crisis) “is important is we see it as a national security issue to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. We see it as an economic issue to create clean energy jobs and to be competitive in our investments and our innovation and technology so that we can be the world leader,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi spoke about how the American delegation prepared for this trip, saying “We arrived in China, we knew what we were going there to do but of course with our message reinforced from what we had just seen (in Alaska) also equipped with a bill that had passed Congress on Thursday which was a historic, momentous legislation on how we would go forward.”

The House Speaker confirmed that China has already demonstrated efforts to take energy consumption and climate into consideration, as she said “The Chinese have done remarkable things… in terms of closing down coal plants that were inefficient, the investments in research and actual construction of buildings in different ways so they’d use less energy in their construction and on the ongoing.”

But Pelosi reported that, despite efforts towards for climate improvement on a certain level, the delegation was met with a certain resistance from their Chinese counterparts with regards to further resolutions.

“What they wanted to be clear to us is that as they were doing this and they were investing in the technologies and the rest… they were going to be developing still, sustainable development with more of an emphasis on the development side,” said Pelosi.

Every year, “600,000 die of pollution in China,” according to Pelosi.

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), John Kerry (D-Mass.) Benjamin Cardin (D-Md.), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) spoke at a news conference in the Upper Senate Park about the upcoming climate legislation. Boxer, chairwoman for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said that she could not have sent the Global Warming Pollution Reduction Act to the floor without a bipartisan effort in the Senate. She presented a graph that showed rising gas prices since 2000. According to Boxer’s chart, in 2000 the price of gas stood at $1.47/gallon. Current gas prices average $3.94/gallon. Boxer added that President Bush opposes the bill because it has the potential to increase gas prices by a total of $0.50 by the year 2030.

Kerry emphasized the importance of the bill, stating that it goes to the core of the problems facing future generations and that it will enhance future legislation. Kerry said that this legislation affects the United States’ ability to survive, declaring “this is a bill and this is an effort whose time has come.”

Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced today his decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The ESA protects vulnerable species with two classifications: endangered, meaning the species is in danger of extinction, or threatened, in that the species is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future. (more…)