Washington - Tackling climate change cannot come at the expense of the global economy and developing countries must start pulling their share, the US' top climate adviser said Wednesday, fending off accusations from environmental groups that the US has been obstructing talks on a new climate agreement. US President George W Bush has "made clear that energy security and climate change are two of the greatest challenges of our time," said James Connaughton, chairman of environmental quality at the White House.
Connaughton will be joining the US delegation as talks heat up at the UN climate summit on the Indonesian island of Bali next week, where negotiators are mapping out the path towards a climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires 2012.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, Connaughton said the US remained committed to reaching a deal on a post-Kyoto framework by 2009 and expected a "positive outcome" in Bali.
Environmentalists Wednesday accused the US, Canada and Japan of working to curtail ambitious goals and binding commitments in the Bali negotiations, which began Monday. The US has not ratified Kyoto, which since 2005 commits industrialized nations to cutting greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
"It appears that the Americans here are not serious," said Hans Verolme, director of the climate change programme at the World Wide Fund for Nature.
Connaughton, however, said he believed the United States would be able to find common ground between governments on a new treaty that is "environmentally effective and economically sustainable."
But he added that developing countries, who were left out of the Kyoto Protocol, would have to up the ante to prevent global warming from increasing in the long term.
Industrial nations "have historic responsibility to take care of what we are now doing. But if we want to truly effect the long-term temperature trend, we can't afford for the major developing countries to wait."
The differing responsibilities of developed and developing countries is one of the top issues in Bali as emissions from emerging economies continue to grow. Connaughton said China - which by some estimates has already passed the US as the world's largest emitter - was "critical" to any future climate treaty.
Meena Raman, chairwoman of the environmental coalition Friends of the Earth on Wednesday said developing countries would continue to duck their responsibilities until the US and other industrial nations met theirs.
"If the record shows that the obligations of the industrialized nations have not been met how can you expect the developing countries to step up to the plate?" she asked.
Connaughton countered that the US was leading the way in encouraging renewable energy alternatives and fuel economy standards, but he would not commit to nationwide mandatory caps on the emissions of industries.
A US Senate committee meanwhile passed a bipartisan climate bill Wednesday evening that would introduce a nationwide cap-and-trade programme. A group of 11 Democratic congressmen at the Bali conference Wednesday also urged governments to look past the current Bush administration which, they said, does not represent the US "mainstream" on the issue.
Connaughton said each country had to find its own mix of methods, and that overly rigorous measures could impact the economy and cut investment into new technologies necessary to combat global warming.
"We believe sustained economic growth is a necessary precondition to being able to achieve any reasonably aggressive target for reducing emissions," Connaughton said. "If you don't have wealthier, advancing societies - these technologies come at a cost, you need to be able to pay for them."
