Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s failure to land the Olympics on a visit to Copenhagen hasn’t diminished pressure from environmentalists for him to return there this year on another risky mission: winning a global warming accord.

“I would hope since he went to push Chicago’s bid for the Olympics, he would go back in December to help save the world from climate change,” said Phyllis Cuttino, director of the Pew Environment Group’s U.S. Global Warming Campaign in Washington.

The U.S., China and 190 other countries are set to gather in Copenhagen to hammer out terms for a climate accord to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown promises to be there if needed to “clinch the deal” and is urging other world leaders to do the same. Obama would consider returning if the talks were designed to be between heads of state, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One yesterday.

Obama’s personal request for a Chicago Olympics was denied yesterday when the International Olympic Committee chose Rio de Janiero. Environmental activists such as Greenpeace used his presence in Copenhagen to pressure him on the climate meeting.

“Right city, wrong date,” read a Greenpeace banner that hung from Copenhagen’s St. Nicholas Church Tower, overlooking the square where Obama met with the Danish royal family and Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen.

“If the U.S. is to lead the world in getting a fair, ambitious and binding agreement in Copenhagen, then the president needs to lead,” said Michael Crocker, a spokesman for Greenpeace USA in Washington.

‘Technocrats and Bureaucrats’

“It’s clear the technocrats and bureaucrats haven’t been able to get the job done and having the gravitas of heads of state in the same room negotiating may be what is required,” he said.

Obama’s decision may hinge on whether he has U.S. climate- change legislation to tout at the December meeting. While the House of Representatives passed a bill to cap greenhouse-gas emissions in June, Democratic Senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer introduced a proposed bill three days ago.

U.S. lawmakers aren’t likely to approve climate change legislation by the time countries meet in Copenhagen, the White House’s top energy adviser, Carol Browner said at a conference in Washington yesterday.

Allocate Permits

The Senate bill says nothing about how to allocate pollution permits, an issue that took the House months to resolve after discussions with utilities and other companies. The Senate bill faces opposition from Republicans as well as coal-state Democrats such as Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.

“I would hope President Obama will be put in a position that he can go to Copenhagen in December because the U.S. has legislation passed or near being passed,” John Bruton, the European Union’s ambassador to the U.S., said in an interview yesterday.

“That would enable the U.S. to lead by example on climate change,” he said. “I’m really hoping a return trip to Copenhagen will be possible for the president.”

At a working dinner on climate change of about 20 world leaders last week in New York, “many” heads of state and government said they were willing to attend the Copenhagen negotiations, according to a UN news release on Sept. 22.

‘Outreach Needed’

“Other nations hope the president’s willingness to go to Copenhagen for the Olympics signals that he will be willing to do the same kind of outreach needed to move the climate issue forward,” said Annie Petsnok, a lawyer for Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group based in New York. She previously worked in the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton

Dan Esty, head of Yale University’s Center for Environmental Law & Policy in New Haven, Connecticut, said he’s “doubtful” Obama will attend the Copenhagen meeting because the likelihood for a successful negotiation is slim.

The biggest obstacle in getting a climate agreement in Copenhagen is lack of U.S. legislation to “signal to the rest of the world that we are getting serious about reducing emissions,” Esty said in an interview.

“The first rule for White House staff is to keep the president away from anything that doesn’t make him look good,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“The Catch-22 here is that the chances for success in Copenhagen may be enhanced if Obama and other heads of state agree to go,” he said.

The U.S.’s Shoulders

Obama has no regrets about flying to Copenhagen to unsuccessfully lobby for Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics, White House senior adviser David Axelrod said yesterday.

“All he really lost was some sleep,” Axelrod said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

Gibbs said earlier this week that success in Copenhagen doesn’t lie on the U.S.’s shoulders alone.

“We’re not an American solution away from having a total agreement in Copenhagen, right?” Gibbs said in a briefing. “We need the Chinese to come to this with some serious proposals. We need the Indians to come.”

Bruton said he agrees that a deal must be global and can’t be accomplished without crucial participation by countries like China, the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas emitter.

“An agreement without China doesn’t mean very much,” he said. “But an agreement without the U.S. doesn’t mean very much either. That’s the point.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Kim Chipman in Washington at KChipman@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 3, 2009 00:00 EDT