INTERVIEW - Delaying U.N. climate deal makes no sense - Denmark

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Major nations still want a new U.N. deal in Copenhagen in December and a few months' delay to give bogged-down negotiators more time would not help, Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard said on Saturday.

"The resolve is there" to reach agreement this year, Hedegaard told Reuters after hosting two days of informal talks in Barcelona among ministers from 23 nations including China, the United States, European states, Brazil and South Africa.

"I don't think that we can solve anything in March or April that we can't solve in December," she said by telephone. Hedegaard will preside over the Copenhagen meeting.

She said that "lots of people would like to postpone" a deadline of the Dec. 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen but that among ministers "there's a very strong will to do whatever we can."

The U.S. Senate, however, looks unlikely to agree legislation to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions before Copenhagen and many countries may be reluctant to set deep 2020 cuts without certainty that Washington will act.

Hedegaard said that there would be "lots of details we can't solve" that could be left for a annual U.N. meeting among environment ministers. The next one after Copenhagen is due in Mexico in December 2010.

Climate negotiators from 175 nations will meet from Nov. 2-6 in Barcelona for a final session before Copenhagen to try to break deadlock between rich and poor over a deal.

The United Nations wants Copenhagen to agree on four key elements -- individual cuts in emissions for rich nations, actions by poor nations to slow their rising emissions, new finance and technology for developing nations and a system to oversee funds. But there are wide disagreements.