Shock: Fiona Harvey on admits that planet-saving CO2 targets will be published in 2015 "chiefly" to avoid "introducing the incendiary subject of climate change" into the 2014 US congressional elections

As the Warsaw climate talks end, the hard work is just beginning | Fiona Harvey

Publishing targets in the first quarter of 2015 do not leave long for the assessment process to take place. However, that timetable has been drawn up chiefly to take account of the realities of the US electoral timetable. The US government announced earlier this year that it would set its post-2020 targets in the first quarter of 2015. That is necessary to ensure that the decision does not get tangled up in the US congressional elections in autumn 2014 – they are likely to be touchy enough, without introducing the incendiary subject of climate change.