KEY POINTS:
Any agreement at the United Nations climate change conference that began yesterday in Bali will not make sense without the United States - the world's top greenhouse gas emitter - taking part, says the UN climate chief.
Delegates from 190 countries are meeting on the Indonesian island for the largest-ever global warming conference - more than 10,000 people including Hollywood stars, former US Vice-President Al Gore, fishermen and drought-stricken farmers.
World leaders will try to launch negotiations leading to a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Among the most contentious issues will be whether emission cuts should be mandatory or voluntary.
Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the US role would be critical in the discussions and delegates had to come up with a roadmap that Washington would embrace.
"To design a long-term response to climate change that does not include the world's largest emitter and the world's largest economy just would not make any sense."
The United States, which with Australia refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, said before the Bali talks that it was eager to launch negotiations, but it has been among industrialised nations leading a campaign against mandatory emission cuts.
But now, the US may find itself isolated at the conference, since Australian Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, whose Labor Party swept to power in general elections just one week ago, immediately put signing the Kyoto pact at the top of his international agenda.
At best, analysts believe, Bali could lead to a two-year negotiation in which a new US Administration, Europeans and other industrial nations commit to deepening blanket emissions cuts.
- AP
