A new global climate deal should be reachable by 2009, with nations outside the Kyoto Protocol more sympathetic to such a pact, the UK's chief scientific adviser said on Tuesday. "The point is it really needs to be in place by 2009 if we're going to have a process to operate from 2012," David King told Reuters.
The Kyoto Protocol obliges 36 industrialised countries to cut their overall emissions of greenhouse gases to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. But the United States and China, the two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, have not signed up.
"I am quite optimistic of the new deal coming into place in 2009," King said in an interview in Sydney. Australia is also not a Kyoto signatory. King, a chemist who has held the chief science adviser post since 2000 and who has described climate change as a greater threat than terrorism, sees US involvement as key to any new climate change deal.
"It's not going to be possible to reach an agreement without the United States being a major player," said King. "So we do need leadership from the United States and we do need a clear position in terms of providing targets, globally and nationally, and in providing a fiscal process and economic process that will drive these targets forward," he said.
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