Rich countries must commit to deeper cuts in greenhouse gas emissions if they want India and China to sign onto an accord to curb global warming, a top UN climate official said today.
"We need to see that leadership from rich countries," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, at the World Economic Forum.
"Without rich country leadership, we will not get developing country engagement," he said.
Global leaders hope to reach agreement at a UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December, but de Boer said negotiations are moving so slowly that it will be impossible to reach a comprehensive deal by then. He said the Copenhagen meeting should aim instead to agree on "key cornerstones" of emissions cuts and how to finance them.
Key sticking points are on how much the United States and other industrialised countries can cut emissions and how much developing economies can be expected to reduce the rapid growth of their own. Washington has said it is committed to reaching a deal as long as other major polluters such as India and China do their part well.
"We need to get clarity in Copenhagen on what developing countries, especially major developing countries like China and India, will do to limit the growth of their emissions," de Boer said at a news conference.
Government leaders are expected to discuss the pact at a special UN meeting in New York next month, followed by a gathering of the group of 20 major economies hosted by US President Barack Obama in Pittsburgh.
The Copenhagen meeting is meant to create a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which bound 37 industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012.
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Kyoto placed no obligations on developing countries. In this round, wealthier nations want developing countries, especially on India and China, to share the burden and agree to slow their explosive emissions growth.
Offers of emissions cuts from wealthy countries so far total 15 per cent to 21 per cent below 1990 levels, according to de Boer's agency. The United States has yet to make a formal offer.
De Boer said bigger cuts of 25 to 40 per cent are required, and below that, "I think the public of the world will not feel that governments have stood up to the challenge."
The US House of Representatives has passed a climate bill that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept emissions limits. Obama has opposed attaching trade issues to climate and energy legislation.
India has criticised the US lawmakers' approach and proposed a clause that would forbid any government from erecting trade barriers to punish a nation that refused to accept limits on its carbon emissions.