Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke at a climate change conference on Monday, expressing U.S. support for international greenhouse gas and carbon emissions limitations. The two-day Major Economics Forum on Energy and Climate was sponsored by the U.S. State Department and hosted some of the world’s biggest polluters, including the U.S., China, Brazil, the European Union, and India.

Clinton broke with the previous administrations’ objections with the Kyoto Protocol, calling climate change a “political challenge,” “security threat,” and a “moral imperative.”

The rhetoric seems to signal a turn in American policy on the Kyoto Protocol, since its 1997 passage and subsequent rejection the past 12 years. The meeting marked a prelude to the official United Nations December meeting to discuss the Kyoto Protocol or a possible replacement bill. The current Kyoto Protocol is set to expire in 2012 unless renewed. 

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