Officials Expect No Climate Treaty Deal at Copenhagen Talks

U.S. and international officials said the Copenhagen climate change talks will not produce agreement on a treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the New York Times reported. Officials were instead working on a non-binding agreement for countries to limit their GHG emissions based on targets set by individual nations. Michael Froman, an Obama administration adviser, said leaders felt "it is unrealistic to expect a full internationally, legally binding agreement could be negotiated between now and Copenhagen." However, they hoped to make Copenhagen "an important step forward" that will have "operational impact" on future talks.

Australian President Kevin Rudd and Mexican President Felipe Calderon were said to be leading efforts on the non-binding agreement. The Australian reported that Rudd said: "I believe that everyone is seeking right now to put their best foot forward" and leaders were optimistic "about the sort of agreement we could achieve in Copenhagen."

U.K. climate change secretary Ed Miliband told the BBC the Copenhagen talks may lead to "completion some months afterwards," but they needed to produce "a really ambitious set of commitments from all world leaders." Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen added that the talks "should finally mandate continued legal negotiations and set a deadline for their conclusion" at meetings in either Germany or Mexico in 2010. He called the new plan a "one agreement, two steps" strategy.

Cancellation of the goal of member nations halving their GHG emissions by 2050 indicated the continued problems the talks will likely face, Politico reported. Froman was quoted as saying that Rasmussen told leaders that "Copenhagen would be the first step in a process towards an internationally legally binding agreement; that in Copenhagen he would seek to achieve a politically binding agreement that covered all the major elements of the negotiations, including mitigation, adaptation, technology, and finance."

- Related stories also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Associated Press, BBC, Financial Times of London, London Telegraph, MSNBC.com, Reuters, Washington Post, and Xinhua.