Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. President-elect Barack Obama should put global warming ahead of a domestic plan to cut carbon emissions, said Rajendra Pachauri, head of a Nobel Prize-winning United Nations panel of climate-change scientists.

``Irrespective of what he does domestically and when he does something, it's far more important for the U.S. to get engaged in the negotiations and help arrive at an agreement at Copenhagen,'' Pachauri said today in a telephone interview from New Delhi. ``That is clearly far more important than what they do domestically.''

Negotiators from almost 200 countries will meet next month at a UN conference in Poznan, Poland, to discuss ways to limit carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming. The talks are aimed at reaching an accord to replace the Kyoto protocol, which the U.S. has not signed, by next year at a Copenhagen conference.

The UN panel led by Pachauri, 68, has said global warming is causing Arctic ice to melt, rain to decline in parts of Africa and the Mediterranean and sea levels to rise. Governments across the world need to agree on steps they will take to reduce carbon emissions to slow climate change, the panel has said.

With unemployment in the U.S. at a five-year high, an early effort to create jobs by encouraging electricity production from solar and wind energy will get top priority, lobbyists and analysts in the U.S. have said. A more far-reaching effort on a climate- change bill may be delayed until late next year or 2010 though Obama's advisers haven't said which initiative he will push first.

Obama's Priorities

``Based on the kind of agreement that we arrive at, domestic action will follow not just in the U.S. but in other parts of the world also,'' said Pachauri, who leads the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore for raising awareness about the threat of climate change. Pachauri is based in New Delhi.

As proposed, Obama's climate plan would cut emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming by 80 percent by 2050. Emissions credits would be sold in an auction under a cap-and-trade program, not doled out to utilities and others for free. Companies that exceed caps must buy credits on top of those obtained at auction in Obama's cap-and-trade plan.

``Obama realizes that the U.S. needs a totally different energy future,'' Pachauri said. ``And if that's the case, then it clearly answers any doubts on action for reducing emissions.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Subramaniam Sharma in New Delhi at ssharma@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: November 5, 2008 04:55 EST