guardian.co.uk: US aims for bilateral climate change deals with China and India

US aims for bilateral climate change deals with China and India

Fresh commitments may breathe life back into Copenhagen deal as India prepares to announce cap and trade scheme

Suzanne Goldenberg and Jonathan Watts
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 14 October 2009 18.40 BST

The Obama administration is hoping to win new commitments to fight global warming from China and India in back-to-back summits next month, the Guardian has learned, including the first Indian emissions trading scheme.

The US hopes the new commitments will breathe life into the moribund negotiations to seal a global treaty on climate change in Copenhagen in December, by setting out what action each country will take. But many observers say such bilateral deals also risk seriously weakening any Copenhagen agreement by allowing the idea of a global limit on greenhouse gas emissions to be abandoned.

The US's twin diplomatic push will see Barack Obama meeting China's president Hu Jintao in Beijing on November 16-17 before playing host to India's prime minister Manmohan Singh at the White House on November 24. The visits appear timed to provide a much-needed boost to a proposed law to reduce US emissions now before the Senate, as well as to the Copenhagen talks.

At preparatory UN talks in Bangkok earlier this month, the US and other rich countries http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/oct/09/bangkok-climate-talks-end">were accused by a group of 131 nations of trying to "fundamentally sabotage" the Kyoto protocol, which the group said must be the basis for its successor. Kyoto — which made no demands on developing countries and which the US refused to ratify — remains political kryptonite in Washington. The US wants to move away from a legally binding global agreement to one where individual countries pledge cuts in their national emissions.

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