US 'must be part of climate deal'

Delegates from 190 nations will gather on the resort island of Bali for the largest global warming conference ever, bringing more than 10,000 people together for two weeks of marathon discussions, including Hollywood stars, former US Vice President Al Gore, fishermen and drought-stricken farmers.

World leaders will attempt 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 and how to help the world's poorest countries adapt to a worsening climate.

Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said the role of the United States "would be critical" in the discussions and that delegates must come up with a roadmap that is embraced by Washington.

"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," he told reporters.

The US, which along with Australia refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, said ahead of the Bali talks that it was eager to launch negotiations, but has been among industrialised nations leading a campaign against mandatory emission cuts.

But now the US may find itself isolated at the conference, given that Australian Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, whose party swept to power in general elections just one week ago, immediately put signing the Kyoto pact at the top of his international agenda.

US President George Bush, trying to fend off charges that America is not doing enough, said this week that a final Energy Department report showed American emissions of carbon dioxide, a leading greenhouse gas, declined by 1.5 percent last year while the US economy grew.

"Energy security and climate change are two of the important challenges of our time. The US takes these challenges seriously," he said in a statement. "This puts us well ahead of the goal I set in 2002."

The two-week meeting comes after a Nobel Prize-winning UN network of scientists issued a landmark report concluding the level of carbon and other heat-trapping "greenhouse gas" emissions must be stabilised by 2015 and decline from there to stave off the worst effects of climate change.