Obama vows quick action to curb warming

The California summit will help local governments and businesses learn how to begin taking steps to combat climate change, said Richard Kinley, deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

"For me, it is extremely important to give governments the confidence they can go forward and adopt ambitious policies and targets knowing there is a foundation that can deliver the results," Kinley said.

A study released last week by the University of California, Berkeley estimates that California alone could face as much as $23 billion a year in property damage caused by wildfires, rising sea levels and extreme weather events over the next century if nothing is done to combat climate change.

The law Schwarzenegger signed two years ago will require California's major polluters to cut their emissions by about a third by 2020. While the law has been widely embraced by environmentalists and green-technology firms, California regulators are just beginning the difficult process of implementing it and industry groups have warned that it could send jobs out of state.

State Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee, a Republican from San Luis Obispo, said it will be challenging for the governments represented at this week's summit to mandate emission cuts.

"It's critically important we find solutions to global warming that don't hurt the economy (and) that we incentivize new jobs that allow new technologies to be developed as quickly as possible," said Blakeslee. "But pursuing these environmental goals needs to be balanced with the other challenges that we face."

Carbon offsets at conference
Schwarzenegger's summit is funded entirely by businesses and nonprofit groups. It will feature sessions intended to show how energy-intensive industries such as cement and steel manufacturing can reduce their energy use.

Various touches at the conference reflect its earth-friendly theme. Attendees' room keys, name badges, lunch boxes and coffee cups will be made of recycled material.

The Schwarzenegger administration has arranged for the carbon emissions associated with the conference to be offset by sending money to environmental causes around the world.

An analysis by The Associated Press revealed that the air travel alone of the 1,400 invitees would discharge more than 2,554 metric tons of carbon dioxide — a so-called carbon footprint equivalent to that produced from 424 cars driven for a year. The governor's office said about half the invitees are expected to attend.

International negotiators have a December 2009 deadline to complete the next global warming treaty. It intends to cut in half the amount of carbon dioxide discharged into the atmosphere from transportation, industry and power generation by mid-century.

The agreement would succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and does not include the U.S. or China — the world's largest emitters.

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