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REUTERS
WASHINGTON
US President Barack Obama on Wednesday embarked on a 10-day trip where he will stress the urgency of curbing climate change and try to achieve some final agreements with world leaders at a G20 meeting in China.
Obama, who is racing to cement his legacy on climate change before his presidency ends on Jan. 20, will showcase both progress and looming threats in stops at Lake Tahoe, Nevada; Honolulu; and an ocean refuge in the remote Midway Atoll.
On Saturday, he will discuss further steps on climate change with Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is hosting the G20 group of leading economies. The issue is part of the summit's agenda.
Obama and Xi worked together last year at a Paris conference to secure a global deal to cut carbon emissions and are expected to take the next steps soon to help bring the agreement into force.
At a Nevada summit on the health of Lake Tahoe, whose average surface temperature reached an all-time recorded high last year, Obama will talk about drought, wildfires and gains the United States has made in renewable energy. He will point to U.S. carbon emissions that are at their lowest level in almost two decades, the White House said.
"He has not backed off," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who is hosting the summit, said in an interview."He is somebody who has been unrelenting in recognizing that climate change is not a scientific hoax."
The administration set a goal to boost private and philanthropic investments for conservation to $10 billion per year. The number was about $230 million at the beginning of the Obama's first term and is estimated to hit at least $1 billion this year.
