It was the US' fourth Fossil award in Doha, for downgrading developed-country Measurement, Reporting and Verification, an effective system to "measure, report and verify" countries' emissions, commitments and actions, designed during the climate conference in Durban, Mexico, in 2011.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon talks during the opening ceremony of the plenary session of the high-level segment of the 18th session of the Conference of Parties (COP18) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Doha December 4, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

"This is all the more strange because in Copenhagen in 2009, the US pushed China hard to be more robust in its accounting and reporting of emissions. Now the tables have turned," said Montana Brockley, Program Coordinator of Climate Action Network-International, a global network of more than 700 NGOs working to fight climate change.

"The US has some of the most robust transparency and accounting procedures in the whole world, but simply has an allergy to replicating these at an international level," she said.

A recent public opinion survey conducted by the Yale University showed that the public in the US has increasingly accepted the reality of climate change and think the government should take action to counter it.

The survey showed about 77 percent of US citizens said global warming should be a priority for the US president and Congress. It also found that 70 percent of US citizens now accept that climate change is real, and more than half acknowledge it is caused mostly by human activities.

Although the US public thinks the government should make climate-change issues a priority, on the government's agenda it still ranks after issues such as economic development and unemployment reduction, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, at an event jointly hosted by the Center for China Climate Change Communication and Yale University during the climate change talks in Doha.

Contact the writers at wuwencong@chinadaily.com.cn and lanlan@chinadaily.com.cn

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