Binding climate treaty may slip far into 2010

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A binding international treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions will slip to mid-2010 or beyond and a summit in Copenhagen next month will fall short of its ambitions, the United Nations and Denmark said on Monday.

The United Nations' top climate official said a treaty could be wrapped up at talks in Bonn by mid-2010. Denmark, host of next month's meeting, said it might take longer - until Mexico in December. Negotiations on a deal, initially due to be reached at the December 7-18 summit in Copenhagen, have stalled.

U.S. President Barack Obama and some other Asia Pacific leaders embraced a proposal by Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen on Sunday that next month's summit should aim for political agreements but delay a legally binding treaty.

A prominent member of the U.S. Congress also acknowledged it could be months before the Senate gets around to passing a domestic climate bill.

Senator John Kerry, who is leading Senate negotiations on a compromise U.S. measure to tackle global warming, said he and other Democrats were working toward "trying to see if we can get this to the (Senate) floor sometime in the early spring, as early as possible."

Denmark still wants the summit to agree emissions cuts by each developed country, actions by developing nations to slow their rising emissions, and new funds and technology to help the poor.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said he favored at most a six-month delay for a legally binding deal -- until a meeting in Bonn in mid-2010. That would give time for the U.S. Senate to pass carbon-capping laws, he said.

"It's like metal, you've got to beat it when it's hot," he told Reuters at two days of talks involving 40 environment ministers. They are trying to end rich-poor splits blocking even a political deal for sharing out greenhouse gas curbs.