World leaders are arriving in Copenhagen as the climate summit formally enters high-level talks. On Tuesday, US climate negotiator Todd Stern said he foresees no change in President Obama’s offer to cut emissions by 17 percent percent of 2005 levels. The proposal has been widely criticized because it amounts to just a four percent cut when adopting the 1990 standard used by the rest of the world.

Todd Stern: “I’m not anticipating any change in the mitigation commitment. I think that’s something that the President announced just — I don’t know, I guess it was a couple of weeks ago. And so, I don’t think there’s going to be a change in that commitment.”

Stern also renewed his opposition to the payment of climate reparations to poorer countries most affected by global warming.

Todd Stern: “We fully recognize our historic role in putting emissions up in the atmosphere, and we also fully recognize our responsibility to be part of an overall global effort to help poorer countries, both with regard to the need to adapt to the impacts of climate change and the need to help them develop on a sustainable path, which at this point in our collective history means low carbon path. Reparations, to me, conveys a sense of culpability, guilt, that kind of thing. I just — I don’t think that that’s a legitimate — a legitimate way to look at it.”

Canada, meanwhile, has acknowledged it’s drafted a secret plan that would exempt its largest polluters from meeting greenhouse gas reductions. A leaked proposal suggests Canada allow its oil and gas industry to cut emissions by fifteen megatonnes instead of the forty-eight megatonnes the Conservative government has proposed.