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Video – COP 15 Followup – Nancy Pelosi: “We Come Here About One Word – It’s About Jobs”

Copenhagen, Dec 18, 2:30 p.m. press conference.

Nancy Pelosi spoke before the press at the COP 15, making statements which seemed directed more towards shoring up support with the U.S. public than to explaining the U.S. position to the international audience before her. After hearing nearly two weeks of testimony about the projected extreme impacts of climate change, such as hundreds of millions expected to be displaced by rising sea levels, Pelosi’s meandering series of comments seemed out of place and overly U.S. focused. The most focused comment of her press conference is included in this excerpt, where Pelosi says “We come here about one word – it’s about jobs”. For other nations the focus obviously went beyond “jobs”, with island nation Tuvalu and G77 nations discussing climate change in terms of “survival” and calling a weak agreement a “suicide-pact”.

Report by James George