Arthur Max
ASSOCIATED PRESS/AMSTERDAM

The failure of a climate bill in the US Senate is likely to weigh heavily on international negotiations that begin Monday on a new agreement to control global warming.

The decision to strike the bill from the Senates immediate agenda has deepened the distrust among poor countries about the intentions of United States and other industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions that power their wealthy economies but risk causing the Earth to dangerously overheat, say climate activists..

A split between rich and poor nations has characterized the talks since they began two years ago, but it widened after the disappointment of the Copenhagen climate summit last December that fell short of any binding agreement and produced only a brief document of political intentions.

The withdrawal of the bill to cap US emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prominent gas blamed for global warming, ""plays into the same old fault lines,"" said Kelly Dent, of Oxfam International. It has let down developing countries that had looked to President Barack Obamas administration to seize the leadership in climate negotiations, she said Sunday from Bonn, Germany.

Delegations from most of the 194 participating nations begin a five-day negotiating session in Bonn on Monday that is one of the last meetings before another decisive conference convenes at the end of the year in Cancun, Mexico. One more week-long round of talks is scheduled for October in China.

The two keys to any agreement are commitments by rich countries to cut emissions and their pledges to fund poor countries actions to adapt to climate changes affecting agriculture and the frequency of extreme weather events like floodsand drought

So far, Washington has not backed away from its promise at Copenhagen to reduce emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels over the next 10 years. But even that pledge, made more doubtful now by legislative inertia, has been roundly criticized as inadequate.

Christiana Figueres, presiding over the talks for the first time since becoming executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change a month ago, says the industrial countries must lift their emissions reduction pledges if they hope to limit global warming to manageable levels this century.

Pledges given so far amount to reductions of 12 to 19 percent below 1990 levels, she told reporters last week. UN scientists have said the rich countries must slash emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020. Because carbon dioxide accumulates in the atmosphere, scientists say it is crucial to act quickly to reach a peak in global emissions.