The new head of Greenpeace has challenged Barack Obama to agree a binding treaty at the UN Copenhagen climate summit or risk inflaming anti-American sentiment around the world.
Dr Kumi Naidoo, the first African to lead the environmental activist group, said he was not prepared to tolerate "spin and trickery" from negotiators at the crucial meeting.
"It's not to say one is insensitive to the political situation that Obama finds himself in, but we would say he needs to use more of his political capital with the American people," Naidoo told the Guardian in an interview in Johannesburg, South Africa.
He said that after eight wasted years of climate change "denialism" under George Bush, expectations of Obama were far higher, making the US president's recent warning that time had run out to reach a legally binding agreement all the more disappointing.
"There's a missed opportunity for him and the American people around the summit because what it's going to do, sadly, is intensify anti-American sentiment that we've seen rampant in the world, and a lot of the good Obama did through his election and some of his statements potentially will be reversed. Even his Nobel peace prize comes into question."
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