COPENHAGEN, Denmark (CNN) - The United States announced a new initiative Monday to support clean energy technologies in developing nations, funded by $350 million from industrialized countries.
In the announcement at the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu committed $85 million of the total funding over five years, and also announced an international meeting next year in Washington billed as the "first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial."
According to a news release from the Energy Department, the new Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative, referred to as Climate REDI, "will accelerate deployment of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies in developing countries - reducing greenhouse gas emissions, fighting energy poverty and improving public health for the most vulnerable, particularly women and children."
DO WHAT? I'll tell you like my folks told me when I'd ask them for a handout. "Can't afford it", was usually the answer I got. I agree that we need to keep the air we breath healthy, but we afford it. I know $83,000,000.00 compared to $1,400,000,000,000.00 don't seem like much, but it adds up in the long run. I like to use the number instead of the word billion and trillion. It shows it realistically.
Typical of Obama to spend more american taxpayer money helping out OTHER countries!Someone tell this guy,that THEY (not me,I was smart and voted for McCain) voted him to be president of America,not the world!
Ministerial, haha! I think he meant majestical. I can just see Obama now in purple robes, a crown, and a scepter sitting in a throne at the meeting. HAHA!
Why not? We given millions to every Tom, Dick, and Harry that has asked for it. When are our pockets going to be empty?
85 min? Why didn't they splurge and make it an hour and a half?
Obama just loves to give away the money that he steals from hard working people to phonies and this is just another example. Liar & thief, the man is just a few months now from the start of impeachment.
... we don't have enough of our own problems in the U.S., that we have to go to other countries now and clean THEIR air for them?? Thanks Al Gore, you've done more to destroy America than the Soviets ever could have!
Chu doesn't have the authority to announce anything. All funding for this type of Political pandering must come thru the US Congress.
$85 Million to developing countries that likely hate everything about the US? More tax dollars "well spent"!
Can we take it out of these congressmen "mailing budgets"?
DENVER - Two Colorado congressmen spent more than $100,000 each of taxpayer money last year to mail constituents fliers that critics say are really a way to bolster their campaigns, a CALL7 investigation found.
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., spent $103,377 on taxpayer-funded mailing and another $168,223 on reproduction costs in 2008, and U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., spent $100,557 last year sending mail to constituents and another $118,831 on copying costs, congressional records show.
Global warming is by far the greatest problem facing humankind. The economic crisis and terrorism are small potatoes compared to global warming.
We are already past the point of no return on global warming (that was in the 70s). Climate change is now inevitable. We are only dickering about how bad it is going to be.
Because of Conservative propaganda, many Americans do not believe in global warming, especially if they never had a science class. Amerieca's Conservative Leadership is rolling in oil money. That income has persuaded them that lying about the climate is not a bad thing. Surely it is just a Liberal myth, isn't it? I mean, Liberals like to make up stuff because they are Liberals, right? And the oil companies can't be lying to us or they would get in trouble with the government, right? I mean, if you can't believe global corporations, then who can you believe?
... meanwhile, Mexico City, is polluting the entire North American continent both in air and water pollution and NO ONE even cares enough to write about it... raw sewage is being poured into the rivers and streams in all of Mexico, and nobody notices. All the carbon credits in the world won't fix this mess...
I love the way our tax dollars are wasted all over the world. Return the money where it came from, the hard woring American taxpayer. I not talking about a freeloader handout, I'm talking about a taxpayer return.
Steven Chu is awesome. He gets both the science and the business side of energy.
It;s about time the United States became seriously involved with the other nations of the world in protecting our air, water, and the ecosystems of our world.
American greed needs to be overridden by common sense.
Republicans are always screaming about the world and the debt they are "leaving their children and grandchildren" in trying to destroy healthcare reform. Let's see them finally stand up for the Earth their children and grandchildren are going have to try to live on. Republicans need to get their heads out of their rarified air and get a smell of reality.
Well shoot, with how many billions to let Obumbles run auto industries, banks, and what not, and over a trillion for this disaster masquerading as a healthcare bill, what's 85 million more of money we don't have to help fund a fraud. The Obumbles Administration has been doing nothing but throwing our money away, why should this be a surprise?
The title is misrepresented – it seems like we are donating $85 MINUTES and not MILLIONS. I could use an $85 minute. That would be a great payoff!
Maybe we should pledge the $85 million for clean energy in the US first?
Sorry, but isn't this an absurdly small amount?
And Yes, how is OBUMMER going to pay for it?
If we didn't have such a huge deficit, I could see this, but not during these times. I'm not paying more taxes for this Liberal Idiot to give money to other countries.
You DUMocRATS are good at spending OPM (Other People's Money).
You give them OUR jobs. Now you give them OUR tax dollars. I'm sorry did you say what government you worked for?
We "Americans" want our tax dollars spent right here in the USA. Enough is enough....... 2010 cannot get here soon enough.
why? this country is broke as it is anyway.
How can they commit money America doesn't have? This is so stupid, hopefully an offense that leads to impeachment. I can't believe we will have to borrow money and then throw it away.
One
Big
Awful
Mistake
America