United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said his first priority is to persuade the world to agree to new controls on global-warming gases before the end of 2009.
Speaking in New York yesterday, Mr Ban said the biggest obstacle to a new treaty was the United States.
"We will have to work very hard to be able to agree on a universal, global agreement before the end of 2009," he said. "US absence has been the most serious one [problem], in fact," he said.
"Now our target should be one global framework, one global agreement, with the United States and everybody participating in that agreement."
Mr Ban is heading for Bali, Indonesia, where he will attend the final two days of a major UN climate conference next week. He said it was critical to lay the groundwork for a new climate treaty, chiefly among industrial nations, within two years.
Un Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
"My target is to launch official negotiations, with a target date of end of 2009 with a concrete agenda." If nations agree, it would take effect at the 2012 expiration of the Kyoto Protocol, which has been rejected by the Bush administration.
New Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has agreed to formally adopt the UN-backed Kyoto pact and its caps on greenhouse gas emissions.
But Mr Ban said the most he got from the United States is that it will "constructively engage" in negotiations for a new climate treaty.
AP