By Timothy Gardner
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The top U.S. climate envoy on Thursday urged other countries to set carbon emission targets to fight global warming by the end of this month as a crucial step toward a global legally binding agreement.
Todd Stern said the Copenhagen accord hammered out last month provided the best path toward a concrete, binding climate agreement, but first countries needed to pledge targets and put them in the document.
"We have an accord that is lumbering down the runway and we need for it to have enough speed to take off," Stern told a conference on climate risks and opportunities at the United Nations. "The best way to make progress toward a legal agreement is to get the Copenhagen accord implemented."
The United States, China, India and more than 20 other countries struck the accord at the end of last month's climate talks in Copenhagen. It was not formally adopted, but merely noted, by all 190 participating nations, as several objected.
It set a goal of holding the rise in global temperatures below 2 degrees Celsius and included financing and technology agreements but left details to be worked out this year.
The document set a January 31 deadline for rich countries to submit emissions targets for 2020 and for developing countries to present voluntary actions on cutting emissions.
U.S. environmental groups said they thought the Obama administration would meet the deadline, but the targets likely would be provisional since Congress has not yet passed legislation mandating the pollution controls.
An administration official, speaking on condition he was not named, said the White House's late November announcement of carbon reductions in the range of 17 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels, was "still operative." Compared to the 1990 base year used by the European Union and many other countries, that corresponds to a 3 to 4 percent cut in 2020.
"We now need countries to step forward and say they want to be part of it," Stern said of the accord.
COUNTRY COUNT
A senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity that in addition to the nearly 30 countries that had officially signed up to accord, another 20 to 30 are stating their willingness to associate themselves with it and 30 to 40 more are privately pledging that they will.
Key powers wanted at least 100 countries to add their targets and actions to the document to demonstrate the momentum needed for securing a legally binding agreement, the diplomat said.
Announcements should come soon. Four of the world's largest emitters will meet in New Delhi late this month to discuss actions on climate.
The European Union, which agreed in 2008 to cut its carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels, has offered to raise its target to 30 percent if other major economies agreed to equivalent measures.
But some EU members are already chafing at the 20 percent cut, so a steeper target may be unlikely. A decision may come this weekend.
Stern said President Barack Obama was focused on getting a climate bill passed this year. "There will be a significant effort on the part of all in the administration to press forward on a strong broad energy and climate bill," he said.
(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Richard Cowan in Washington and Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations, editing by Cynthia Osterman)
