Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The deadline for 192 countries to complete a new global-warming accord may slip by as much as one year, as negotiators hold back on pledges to slash emissions or pay financial aid to poor nations.

Yvo de Boer, the United Nations supervisor for climate talks, said yesterday in an interview that too little progress has been made to conclude a treaty at a summit in Copenhagen next month, and it may take another year. He spoke in Barcelona, where the final talks before Copenhagen end today.

The most powerful nations are holding back their biggest cards in what envoys liken to game-playing. The U.S., the second-largest greenhouse-gas producer after China, won’t say how much aid it may offer. China has pledged no specific emissions goals. And Japanese and European delegates said they may not put concrete numbers for funding on the table until the two-week Danish summit is almost finished.

“They’re playing a game that’s self-defeating,” Lumumba Di-Aping, a Sudanese envoy who speaks for 130 developing nations and China, said in an interview about richer country strategies. “It’s a jigsaw that has to be done earlier rather than later.”

The sticking points also include emission-reduction targets for industrialized nations that the developing world says aren’t ambitious enough.

For almost two years, negotiators have tried to devise a new set of targets for the 37 developed nations bound by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol treaty, whose current goals expire in 2012.

They’re also trying to agree on goals for the U.S., which never ratified Kyoto, and on what major developing nations such as China and India may do. Those two had no Kyoto commitments.

‘Year After Copenhagen’

“I don’t think we can get a legally binding agreement by Copenhagen,” said de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. “I think that we can get that within a year after Copenhagen.”

Japan can’t make an aid pledge yet because it’s still studying how to generate funds for helping poorer nations adapt to warmer temperatures and cut their own emissions, Japanese negotiator Akira Yamada said.

“Everyone knows that a figure will come at the last moment,” Yamada said in an interview. “We are considering very seriously how much we can contribute up to 2012 and beyond.”

Delays in announcing funding affect other areas of the talks, as developing nations say they need to know how much aid they’ll get before they can spell out how they will lower their greenhouse gas emissions.

Richer nations in turn are waiting to see what the likes of China and India will do before specifying their own pledges, leading to a “chicken-and-egg situation,” that isn’t “useful” for progress, said Selwin Hart, a delegate from Barbados who speaks for 42 small island states.

Held Hostage

“Financing on adaptation should not be held hostage to agreement elsewhere,” Hart said in an interview. “Greater clarity on financing numbers will certainly lead to major progress with mitigation actions by developing countries.”

The UN says finance and emissions-reduction efforts by poorer nations are two cornerstones of a global-warming pact. Another is the scale of emissions cuts by developed countries.

This week, African nations stalled the talks for one day because of what they described as a lack of ambition by industrialized nations in slashing greenhouse gases.

The U.S., the biggest historical emitter, is waiting on guidance from Congress, which is debating proposed climate laws, before bringing numerical pledges to the climate talks.

European Delay

“Finance will be a critical element of any climate agreement in Copenhagen,” Jonathan Pershing, the lead U.S. envoy in Barcelona, said in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The Obama Administration is committed to significantly scaling up climate finance to support international efforts to combat global climate change.”

He didn’t say when a pledge will be made.

European Commission envoy Artur Runge-Metzger said EU numbers won’t come until late in the December talks.

Targets and finance “will only be decided by ministers, and there will only be ministers present in Copenhagen during the last week,” Runge-Metzger said in an interview. “The question of the numbers is probably the most-tricky one.”

The 27-nation European Union has said that developing nations will need up to 100 billion euros ($148 billion) in aid per year by 2020, half of it from public money. The bloc hasn’t said how much it will contribute to that sum.

Playing Cards

“Europe’s strategy has always been don’t play your cards early: they want to play it close to the desk,” Steven Herz, climate finance adviser to the environmental group Greenpeace said in an interview. “A lot of movement on that depends on the U.S. moving, so there’s an interest in delaying that conversation.”

The EU has said $5 billion-$7 billion euros of funding is required annually until 2012 to provide “quick-start” climate aid for developing nations.

Japan’s Yamada said it will be “difficult” for his country to announce specific amounts of aid for after 2012 in Copenhagen, because the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama will need to make sure it can follow up on its pledges.

“Some people may think that money comes form heaven, but it comes from either private money or from the taxpayer’s pocket,” Yamada said. “When we pledge, we have to keep our commitments.”

G77 Demand

At the same time, it’ll be easier for the Asian nation to pledge quick-start financing for the years to 2012, Yamada said. Japan is looking to scale up existing climate aid of an aggregate $10 billion pledged for 2008 through 2012, he said, without indicating by how much.

The G77 group of 130 developing nations and China, has demanded developed nations divert 0.5 percent to 1 percent of their economic output to help developing nations lower their emissions growth and adapt to the droughts and floods predicted by UN scientists to result from global warming. That amounts to $200 billion to $400 billion a year, based on the current economic output of the industrialized world, including the U.S., the EU, Japan, Canada, Russia and Australia.

To contact the reporters responsible for this story: Alex Morales in Barcelona via amorales2@bloomberg.net; Ryan Chilcote in Barcelona via rchilcote@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 6, 2009 04:00 EST