What can we expect on energy and climate change at the upcoming G-20 meeting?

The traditional focus on the G-20 agreement is on economic issues. At this upcoming G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh, we can expect a push from countries like Australia and Denmark to focus more on climate change as one of the most important issues facing our planet.

What should the United States be expected to bring to these discussions?

Earlier this summer in July, at the G-8 meeting, the United States and many of the other major carbon emitters in the world promised to deliver at the G-20 detailed proposals on how they would pay for adaptation and mitigation of carbon emissions to solve the problem of global warming. At the G-20 the United States is expected to fill that promise by putting concrete proposals on the table.

Will the meeting help pave the way to a stronger U.N. climate summit in Cophenhagen?

It may not be commonly known that the big U.N. summit in December in Copenhagen on climate change is actually the end result of a series of smaller meetings. The interim meetings on the way to Copenhagen sponsored by the United Nations have quite frankly been mixed. On the one hand there's been a lot of progress on language for a new treaty that will replace the Kyoto protocol which expires in 2012. On the other hand these meetings have also revealed some of the deep disagreements among countries that still exist in terms of coming up with a solution to the problem of climate change. What is hoped is that the G-20 and other meetings on the way to Copenhagen, that have all linked a smaller number of parties, will actually results in new ideas that could help lead to success at Copenhagen.