The US has adopted an all-or-nothing position at the Cancun climate change summit, fuelling speculation of a walk-out if developing countries do not meet its demands.
At the opening of the talks, the US climate negotiator, Jonathan Pershing, made clear the United States wanted a ”balanced package” from the summit.
That is diplomatic speak for a deal that would couple the core issues for the developing world - agreement on climate finance, technology and deforestation - with US demands from emerging economies for action on emissions and a verifiable system of accounting for those cuts.
In Washington, the chief climate envoy, Todd Stern, was blunt. ”We’re not going to race forward on three issues and take a first step on other important ones. We’re going to have to get them all moving at a similar pace.”
Mr Stern has said the US will not budge from its insistence that fast-emerging economies such as Brazil, India and China commit to reducing emissions and to an inspection process.
The hard line has fuelled speculation the Obama administration could walk out of the Cancun talks. It is already under pressure over its environmental agenda from a new Republican power bloc in Congress that is determined to defund climate change programs and block the powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to act on greenhouse gases and other pollution.
There is next to no chance Congress would take up cap-and-trade legislation or ratify any United Nations treaty.
The administration’s weak domestic position has cast doubts on its ability to deliver even the 17 per cent cut on 2005 emissions to which Mr Obama agreed in Copenhagen last year.
A walk-out would wreck hope that progress in Cancun might put the UN negotiations process back on track after Copenhagen.
Michael Levi, an energy and environment fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the dynamics of Cancun could push the US into a walk-out.
”There are decent odds that the United States will be presented with a final package that takes action on all sorts of things that developing countries want but doesn’t have any clear wins for Washington,” he wrote on a blog.
”But I wouldn’t be surprised to see the US reject such an outcome, even if it means walking away with nothing and being attacked for that.”
The US has scaled down its presence at Cancun, compared with Copenhagen, which it saw as a chance to spotlight the changes in Washington post-George Bush.
The dynamics of Cancun are different. Developing countries and some in Europe see the meeting as a last chance to reach agreement on the building blocks of a treaty - with or without the US.
