The Financial Times reports:

The US remains determined to lead the world to a new global deal on climate change, Steven Chu, the energy secretary, said yesterday.
Even if China and other developing countries are reluctant to make commitments at December’s UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, “President Obama has made it clear that the US should act first,” Mr Chu said. “Using China as a reason not to act is no longer an option.”
Mr Chu, who won the Nobel Physics Prize in 1997, was speaking to journalists after arriving in London for a meeting to discuss climate change with more than 20 fellow Nobel laureates and dozens of other experts.
The London meeting — hosted by the Prince of Wales and Royal Society, and organised by Cambridge University and Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research — is expected to close tomorrow with a strong declaration of the need for action against global warming, ahead of the Copenhagen conference.
Although the US would not use China as an excuse for inaction, Mr Chu said he was optimistic the Chinese would act to curb emissions of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas most responsible for global warming.
“China’s leadership knows well what the consequences of climate change will be for their country,” he said.

Yes — and they are licking their chops.