The Associated Press: Deadline for global climate treaty in question

POZNAN, Poland (AP) — Negotiators from 190 countries agreed a year ago to complete a new global warming treaty by the end of 2009 that would force governments to reduce carbon emissions.

That deadline now appears to be slipping away.

"It was too optimistic to begin with," said Eileen Claussen, the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, whose organization closely monitors the U.S. Congress on climate issues.

Delegates from nearly all the world's nations have been meeting since Monday in the Polish city of Poznan to assess progress toward the new treaty, but many like Claussen doubt one can be finalized by the next climate meeting in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The new treaty is meant to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and has required that 37 countries slash emissions of heat-trapping gases by an average 5 percent from 1990 levels.

Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate official, has said it is critical to have a new framework by next year, though he doubted a full text could be reached by then.
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The details can be filled in later, he said.
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Relaxing the December 2009 deadline would take pressure off negotiators and could fatally set back the process, [Alden Meyer, of the Union of Concerned Scientists] said.

"If you don't get a decision in Copenhagen, then you lose the political momentum that we've built up with the world expecting a deal there — and then what becomes the next deadline? Does that mean we slip a year, we slip two years?"

Claussen, in a telephone interview from Washington, said the new administration of President-elect Barack Obama cannot finish domestic legislation in time to bring hard U.S. commitments to the table in Copenhagen "despite what I believe will be heroic efforts."