-- U.S. climate envoy says any legally binding agreement wouldn't require emissions cuts before 2020
-- The U.S. will adhere to an emissions-reduction pledge it made in 2009
-- The U.S. and China reiterate their previous positions on a future climate agreement
-- An ongoing stalemate between China and the U.S. is widely expected to continue
WASHINGTON -- A week before international climate negotiations are scheduled to start, the U.S. has signaled it doesn't expect the world's economic powers to reach a legally binding agreement that would require greenhouse-gas emissions cuts until 2020.
An ongoing stalemate between China, which has resisted agreeing to legally binding emissions cuts, and the U.S., which has said it only will agree to binding emission cuts if China does, is widely expected to continue at climate talks sponsored by the United Nations that are scheduled to start Monday in Durban, South Africa.
The U.S. and China reiterated those positions in separate statements Tuesday.
The deadlock has led to uncertainty about the future of the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty, which expires in 2012. It has angered developing countries that stand to lose the most in the event of rising sea levels and extreme-weather events, such as droughts and floods, that scientists have predicted are likely to increase in frequency if global temperatures continue to rise.
With no major climate deal in sight until 2020, the U.S. plans to stick to an emission-reduction pledge it made in 2009 in Copenhagen and implement a package of nonbinding agreements that nations reached last year in Cancun, Mexico, said U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern, the lead U.S. negotiator.
"The Cancun agreement ?????? sets what we're doing between now and 2020," Stern said Friday during a press briefing in Washington, indicating for the first time that legally binding greenhouse-gas emissions cuts before 2020 aren't in the cards.
A legally binding climate treaty might be agreed before 2020, but it wouldn't require emissions cuts until after 2020, Stern said.
Stern defended the ongoing negotiations, however, pointing out that more than 80 countries pledged in Cancun to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions, without a binding treaty.
"What is true about Cancun and Copenhagen is that all major parties have taken steps together, which had never happened before," Stern told reporters Tuesday. The agreement may be nonbinding, but it "represents a solemn commitment by all the parties. No one takes it lightly," he said.
Japan, Russia and Canada have said they don't plan to sign on to a second round of the Kyoto treaty unless the world's major emitters, particularly the U.S. and China, also agree to cut their emissions, and European countries essentially have said the same thing.
Brazil, India and other developing countries have pressed for an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, saying that keeping the treaty alive is important in the fight against climate change.
The U.S., which isn't a party to the Kyoto treaty, has proposed developing a new agreement that would require the world's large economies, including China and India, to cut their emissions under the same legally binding requirements as the U.S. and other large countries. "We wouldn't do it if all major economies weren't also part of it in quite a full way," Stern said.
Under the Kyoto protocol, developed countries like European nations and Japan are held to a higher standard than developing countries like China and India.
Stern suggested that the U.S. proposal has had little traction with China and other large energy users and said negotiations about post-2020 emission-reduction commitments are part of "an ongoing discussion which will go on in Durban."
Beijing restated China's previous stance Tuesday. Xie Zhenhua, China's chief climate negotiator, said China supports the Kyoto Protocol and its differentiation between developed countries and developing countries, and that China would press for a second round of the treaty.
Last year in Cancun, countries agreed that human activity is very likely the cause of a rapidly changing world climate and laid out a framework for mitigating its effects, tracking and reporting emissions, and helping hard-hit countries adapt. The Obama administration also has pledged to cut U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 17% by 2020. China made a similar pledge to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40% to 45% by 2020, compared to 2005 levels.
Asked Tuesday about progress in the U.S., where a broad emissions-reduction program has failed to make it through Congress, Stern cited the Obama administration's work to cut carbon-dioxide emissions from gasoline-burning vehicles and coal-fired power plants, two major sources of greenhouse gases. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tightened vehicle-emissions standards, but the power-plant rules are still pending.
Part of the efforts in Durban next week will be to work out the details of the Cancun agreements, Stern said.
In Cancun last year, wealthier countries pledged to provide $100 billion a year by 2020 to developing countries to develop clean-energy resources and offset the costs of handling droughts, floods and other effects of climate change.
But a rift has formed since then. The U.S. and European countries envision much of that money coming from the private sector in the form of investments supported by government incentives and other policies. But developing countries are skeptical that the money would materialize under such a complex structure and want the governments of developed countries to provide the funding in cash.