The Australian
By: Lenore Taylor, National correspondent
US President Barack Obama plans to take a leadership role at the crucial UN climate change talks in Copenhagen later this year by calling meetings of major polluting nations, including Australia, for next month and July.
The President's involvement raises hopes a deal may be brokered despite the ravages of the global economic crisis.
Mr Obama announced over the weekend the formation of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate -- a grouping of 17 major economies including Australia -- with a ministerial meeting to be held in April and a leaders' meeting in Italy in July.
The President said that his aim was to "help generate the political leadership necessary to achieve a successful outcome in Copenhagen''.
Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who is in the US for talks with key administration officials, said the Rudd Government "fully supported'' the President's plan.
"The United States, through the newly elected Obama administration, has an opportunity like no other nation to transform the current climate negotiations and deliver momentum towards an agreement,'' Senator Wong said.
"There is no nation better placed at this time to help build trust and confidence.''
Senator Wong said the Government believed that any deal in Copenhagen -- where nations will debate an international deal on greenhouse gases to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 -- had to include all the major emitters taking on "comparable commitments ... considering their national circumstances''.
She conceded that defining what was "comparable'' was "invariably thorny'' but said disagreements should not be used as an excuse for delays.
During her trip to the US, Senator Wong is meeting the President's new assistant for energy and climate change, Carol Browner, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Opposition emissions trading spokesman Andrew Robb said the Senate vote on the Australian emissions trading legislation, currently scheduled for June, should be postponed. "If we have no sense of where this is all heading until July, how can the Senate take a decision before then?'' Mr Robb said.
John Connor, chief executive of the Climate Institute, said it was extremely positive that Mr Obama was taking a leadership role in the lead-up to Copenhagen.
But the Government's climate change adviser Ross Garnaut warned the economic crash made the politics of climate change "even harder''.
"It's made everyone more nervous -- business and governments,'' Professor Garnaut told the ABC's Inside Business. "It's focused everyone strongly on the short term and that's understandable. But the long-term problems don't go away just because we're looking at short-term ones.''
Mr Obama said his forum would hold preparatory talks at a ministerial level next month, followed by a leaders' meeting at La Maddalena, in Italy, in July. His announcement came as UN negotiations resumed in Bonn.
The 17 major economies are Australia, Brazil, Britain, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, and the US.
Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said there were conflicting pressures on negotiations for a deal. "There's a double worry: the low oil price means that a lot of renewable energy projects are being pushed on to the backburner and at the same time there's less investment capital around,'' Mr de Boer said.
"But what does give me encouragement is that in a number of economic recovery packages, most notably those in the United States and China, a clean energy future, a low-carbon economy is very much at the heart of how money is being spent.''
In his budget, Mr Obama committed to reduce US emissions to 14per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, and to 83 per cent below 2005 levels by 2050.
The Australian Government has given an unconditional promise to reduce emissions 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 and has said that commitment could increase to 15 per cent in the event of an ambitious global climate deal.