The head of the U.N.'s climate change body says he hopes Barack Obama's election means the United States will take a more active role in fighting global warming.
Yvo de Boer (EE'-voh duh BOH'-ah) says he hopes the U.S. will become leaders on the issue. Those remarks came at the start of a U.N.-sponsored climate change conference in Beijing, part of the build up to a December conference in Poland. There, countries will begin negotiating a successor to 1997's Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Obama says he intends to make the U.S. a leader on climate change. He also plans to introduce emissions caps to the U.S., and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
But de Boer says even under an Obama administration, the U.S. is not likely to join the Kyoto Protocol
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APPHOTO XAY802 (11/07/08)>>
: A Chinese man cycles past chimney of a coal-burning power plant in Shenyang, north China's Liaoning province, Friday, Nov. 7, 2008. The head of the U.N.'s climate change body said Friday he hopes the United States will take a more active role in fighting global warming once Barack Obama becomes president in January.