Obama Will Go to Copenhagen Meeting on Climate Change

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will join at least 65 other world leaders in Copenhagen next month during United Nations talks on combating climate change, an administration official said today.

Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen has invited the heads of almost 200 countries to the Danish capital for the Dec. 7-18 meeting. Leaders planning to make an appearance also include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

The president will go to Copenhagen Dec. 9, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He will then travel to accept the Nobel Peace prize in Oslo, Norway, on Dec. 10.

Obama, who campaigned on a pledge to tackle climate change aggressively, has been under pressure to attend the meeting amid criticism that the U.S., the biggest greenhouse-gas producer on a per-capita basis, is thwarting progress because of a lack of new national laws to limit heat-trapping pollution and create an emissions-trading market

The U.S. Senate is unlikely to pass climate legislation before the Copenhagen meeting, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, has said lawmakers will try to focus on the issue “sometime in the spring.” Without a bill from the Senate, which must ratify treaties by a two-thirds majority, Obama’s negotiators are left without firm guidelines to center their discussions.

Measure Passed House

The House of Representatives passed a bill in June by a 219-212 vote. The Senate is working to complete a bipartisan blueprint of a measure before the Copenhagen meeting, Senator Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, has said.

Negotiators have worked for almost two years to devise new emissions-reduction targets for the 37 developed nations bound by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol treaty goals that expire in 2012. Leaders are also trying to agree on standards for the U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, and for developing nations such as China and India, which had no Kyoto commitments.

Obama and other leaders have said that a binding accord for reducing greenhouse gases is unlikely to happen in Denmark. The UN had previously said the meeting would mark the deadline for completing a treaty.

Instead, leaders are now calling for a “meaningful” political agreement as a framework for a final accord to replace Kyoto. Negotiations are expected to continue next year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at kchipman@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporter on this story: Hans Nichols in Washington at hnichols2@bloomberg.net.