Washington: The US should not wait for India and China to act on climate change and should go ahead with its environmental protection activities in terms of legislation besides research and development, a top official of the Obama Administration has said.
Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), also decried lawmakers of the opposition Republican Party who have been opposing the Climate Change legislation and asking the Obama Administration not to take any further step on the issue unless India and China take concrete steps in this direction.
"I really think that we`re missing an opportunity if we don`t realise that the technologies that are going to be used to move us into cleaner energy, lower carbon, less water use,
all those technologies are going to be important, not just here but to the world," Jackson told reporters at the National Press Club here.
So I would say there`s no reason to wait for China and India to act if we truly believe that there is a reason, environmental and economic, to act now. In fact, there`s every reason not to wait, Jackson argued.
There`s every reason to move forward as expeditiously as we can so we don`t see what seems to be happening continue, which is that we innovate, we invent, and then it goes overseas to be manufactured and used because there`s no market for it here, Jackson said in response to a question.
Bureau Report
