In anticipation of an upcoming Hillary Clinton speech on clean energy, one of the groups laying the groundwork for her presumed 2016 presidential campaign is talking up the former Secretary of State’s record on climate change.
Clinton is scheduled to give the keynote address at the National Clean Energy Summit this Thursday in Las Vegas. Correct the Record, the rapid response outfit in the proto-Hillary 2016 campaign infrastructure, shared with TPM new talking points detailing her record on climate change at the State Department.
The group has been regularly releasing reports outlining Clinton’s record on various issues, from LGBT rights to income equality, for months. They are part of the group’s overall mission of greasing the wheels for Clinton’s various public appearances and putting a positive spin on her past work — all in the context of an anticipated 2016 run.
“Hillary Clinton looked to the future, planning for our generation and the
next generation of Americans when she prioritized the fight against climate
change as a matter of foreign policy,” Adrienne Elrod, communications director at Correct the Record, told TPM in a statement. “Clinton led the way through
partnerships and developed incentives to encourage cooperation and progress
toward reducing our footprint on the environment.”
Correct the Record credited Clinton with changing the way the United States approached climate change, pointing to her establishment of a special envoy for climate change within the State Department, which it called the Obama administration’s point person for climate negotiations, and to the creation of a new Bureau of Energy Resources, which Clinton had said would be devoted to tracking worldwide energy use.
Other points of emphasis for Correct the Record were an agreement with Brazil to improve bilateral coordination on climate change and the Climate and Clear Air Coalition, a group of 37 countries that is working to reduce methane emissions, per the pro-Clinton outfit.
The group also singled out one of Clinton’s favorite anecdotes on the subject, which she included in her recent book, “Hard Choices”: The time that she and President Barack Obama forced their way into a 2009 meeting in Copenhagan between leaders from China, India, Brazil and South Africa so that they could talk about the Kyoto Protocol.
The meeting led to a non-binding agreement that all developed countries would set 2020 goals for cutting their carbon emissions. The United Nations later said that the goals set in the so-called Copenhagen Accord were insufficient, though they were considered “an important step toward the objective of limiting growth of emissions” in the words of an U.N. official.
The Thursday speech is one of the first forums for Clinton to talk extensively about climate change as the 2016 speculation has kicked into full gear. She has, however, continued to addressed it with regularity during her frequent speaking engagements.
In March, according to the Associated Press, she said climate change was “not just some ancillary issue,” but one that required “mass movement.”
“I’m hoping that there will be this mass movement that demands political change,” she said, “and it becomes just as powerful as some of the other issues that effect the outcome of elections here and around the world.”
