After having been the only member of Congress to attend the Bali Climate negotiations, Senator Kerry held a debrief for the press yesterday at noon. He was joined by Kit Batten, Ph.D., Director of Environmental Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
As the callers introduced themselves, there was a moment of surprise when blogger Kerryvisionary announced herself, and named her blog johnkerryismyhero.com. Senator Kerry chuckled and noted that he had not known there was such a thing.
In a brief summary, the Senator expressed his regret at not having been able to attend the Bali conference for its duration, due to a conflicting Senate schedule. He noted that there was a great thirst out there for meetings with American legislators, and that people really had been anticipating the full delegation of House and Senate, which, unfortunately, did not happen.
Having met with, among many others, the Chinese delegation, Senator Kerry was impressed at their openness and willingness to have a productive discussion on this very important issue.
Proving his leadership once again, his discussions with Indonesia's Foreign Minister and Environment Minister extended beyond climate change to include American-Indonesian relations, Myanmar, China, and military cooperation.
Senator Kerry noted the sense of urgency about the science, and the strong consensus among the delegations about the need for a mandate which adheres to that science. He once again expressed regret that the US, along with a few other nations such as Canada, Saudi Arabia, and Japan were restraining this effort.
After his initial summary, Senator Kerry provided the attendees with further details, after which Kit Batten read a fairly extensive statement, which left rather little time for follow-up questions. She did, however, mention that the tenth anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol coincided with the Senator's birthday.
To enjoy the excellent debrief and the follow up statements and questions 
Listen here:
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Photo Credit: Reuters
