BARCELONA, Spain — With the U.S. Congress still struggling to agree on sharp cuts in greenhouse gases or how to fund them, European officials said Thursday that they were now striving for a political agreement instead of a new treaty allowing the U.S. and other rich nations to make commitments that are not legally binding.
The revised thinking was an implicit admission of defeat: The two-year timetable for crafting a landmark treaty will miss its deadline, and that failure threatens to deepen the distrust between wealthy countries and poor nations reeling from drought and failing crops caused by persistently warmer weather.
The treaty had been due to be completed in December at a 192-nation conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.
European and U.N. officials are now suggesting a political deal, rather than a legal accord, that would rely on commitments from both wealthy and developing countries. Industrial countries would commit to firm targets for reducing emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide and allocating funds for poor countries, while developing countries would specify their plans for low-carbon growth.
Such a deal would not be legally binding but would carry the authority of world leaders who would come to Copenhagen to sign off on it. Nations would agree to stick to their promises while they continue negotiating the details of a treaty, taking as long as another year.
The delay is significant. The only instrument for controlling carbon emissions, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, expires in 2012. Unless a new treaty is in place by then, no regulations will exist.
Delegates at the U.N. talks in Spain had not given up hope that the Obama administration would bring specific pledges to the final round of negotiations in Copenhagen.
Success at Copenhagen “depends very much on President Obama himself, on . . . whether he can put numbers on the table or not,” Runge-Metzger said.
Legislation working its way through Congress would reduce U.S. emissions by about 4 percent below 1990 levels. The Europeans and developing countries have complained, however, about Washington’s “low ambitions.”
Former Vice President Al Gore, who won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for highlighting global warming, suggested that the U.S. may not need the legislation to pass to help secure a global agreement next month.
Gore said draft U.S. legislation “that reflects consensus support, carrying realistic expectation of 60 votes” needed to pass in the Senate. It would make the chances better than 50-50 that the 192 nations could reach an agreement.
“That’s the threshold that will enable the United States to play the leadership role the rest of the world expects of us,” Gore said in Washington.
The downsizing of ambitions for the treaty after two years of difficult global negotiations left developing countries and lobby groups despondent.
“We are completely dismayed by the shuffling of feet and sliding backward of the developed countries,” said Raman Mehta, program manager in India for the global anti-poverty agency ActionAid.
Even an interim deal would clear the way to mobilize funds to help poor countries. The European Union has said $7.4 billion to $10.4 billion will be needed in the next three years for developing nations to begin planning their first steps toward controlling their emissions and protecting themselves against the effects of climate change.
There was no sign that developing nations were backing away from their demands for next month’s meeting — including that industrial nations pledge to reduce emissions by at least 40 percent of their 1990 levels by 2020.
Scientists say at least a 25 to 40 percent reduction from those levels is required to avert a climate catastrophe.
