The United States is likely to bear the brunt of the blame among recession-hit developed nations for an expected six- to 12-month delay to a new global climate deal hoped for December in Copenhagen. US failure to match expectations with a carbon target by the December deadline may dent confidence in its power to ever be able to deliver, despite President Barack Obama's strong commitment to fight climate change. Governments were meant to agree a global deal to succeed the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the first period of which runs out in 2012, at the Dec. 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen. But many negotiators say time has run out for the two-year UN talks to craft a legally binding text – especially since the US Senate has not passed a supporting law. Many delegates on the sidelines of UN climate talks in Barcelona, the final preparatory session for the Copenhagen meet, said they were now aiming for a “political deal” in December, with a pact to follow six to 12 months later. They blamed a long-running rift between rich and poor nations and the financial crisis, but especially rued how the United States had failed to table a formal carbon-cutting target. “This is probably (a direct result of) the realization that the United States would not come fully into the agreement at Copenhagen,” Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, chair of a group of least developed nations, said in Barcelona. US negotiators said that their country must be judged on what Obama had achieved in 10 months, including the commitment of $80 billion clean energy funds under America's recovery plans and the progress in US Congress of a draft climate bill. Former President George W. Bush had not made the issue a priority. Asked in Barcelona whether the United States would bring some concrete numerical commitments to Copenhagen, head of the US delegation Jonathan Pershing hedged. “That's a decision yet to be made,” he told reporters. A draft climate bill cleared a key US Senate panel Thursday, but Democrats are likely to fall short of their goal to pass legislation in the full Senate before Copenhagen, as it lacks enough support, making a US offer difficult. “I find it worrying that Copenhagen is in a way a brick wall that is coming closer and closer, so we need to get that (US) issue resolved, and the amount of time remaining to resolve it is getting less and less,” said UN climate chief Yvo de Boer. Other developed nations, which have given priority to ending recession, are also facing the anger of the developing world for failing to come up with deep cuts in emissions. “A key area remains the willingness of the developed countries to come up with specific emission reduction targets,” India's Shyam Saran, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's special climate envoy, said Friday. “We have no indications so far of what numbers the United States will be bringing to the table. Like many others we are waiting to see what will happen.” Recession had not sapped momentum from the negotiations, with many rich and developing nations offering fresh climate targets through 2009 including Japan, Indonesia, China and India, said Tom Burke from Imperial College, London. Failure to deliver a number for the climate change talks would dent US standing in other areas, said Nick Mabey at the London-based think-tank E3G, who saw implications for America's international reputation. “It would harm the perception of US seriousness and ability to deliver on a global scale,” for example Obama's ability to battle nuclear proliferation, he said. On Friday in Barcelona, Greenpeace hung a banner reading “Climate chaos: who is to blame?” from a statue of explorer Christopher Columbus, symbolically pointing towards America. “We single out President Obama because, more than any other head of state, his actions fall short of his promises to take action on climate change,” said Damon Moglen, Greenpeace's US climate director. Climate negotiators in their most pessimistic moments compare the climate talks with the Doha round of world trade talks. That round launched eight years ago and is struggling to overcome a rich-poor rift –to scale back subsidies in the North in return for market access in the South. Rich countries accept that they must lead the fight against climate change, but their offers so far will not pare climate change to less dangerous levels, often referred to as 2 degrees Celsius warming above pre-industrial levels, say analysts.
