OTTAWA - The recent upset election of a no-name Republican to Ted Kennedy's vacant Senate seat could pose a serious threat to joint Canada-U.S. efforts to tackle climate change, say current and former diplomats.

U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Jacobson and others say Republican Scott Brown's victory two weeks ago in Massachusetts poses serious Republican roadblocks to President Barack Obama's agenda - health care reform, getting climate change legislation through Congress, not to mention battling the recession.

Brown's surprise victory in the heart of Democrat territory deprived the party of full control the U.S. Senate, dramatically reshaping the U.S. political landscape.

"The situation in my Congress, particularly in the Senate, is a lot more difficult today, a lot more confused today than it was two weeks ago before the special election in Massachusetts. I think that in large measure what happens with respect to climate change legislation will be a function of what happens with respect to health care legislation," Jacobson told a small dinner audience in Ottawa this week.

Jacobson, who has toured all Canadian provinces including Alberta's contentious oil sands since beginning his posting to Ottawa four months ago, was fielding questions after a speech to the Canadian International Council think-tank on Monday evening.

Asked for his views on how the U.S. economic recovery would unfold, Jacobson again referred to Brown's victory and the gridlock that has caused in the upper chamber of the U.S. Congress.

"What I said about climate change," he replied. "It is a function of what happens with health care. It is a function of what happens with the job's bill. It is difficult, divisive legislation."

The slow pace of progress on climate change legislation in the United States will have a direct impact on Canada because the Harper government says it wants to see Obama's plan before it announces its own rules and regulations for reducing greenhouse gases.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice told a Calgary audience last week that the government won't announce any standards for the energy sector until it sees the U.S. plan. Prentice said Ottawa has to "calibrate" with Washington "otherwise we will have discordant energy and environment policies."

A cap and trade system is a key feature of Obama's climate change bill and one that Brown campaigned against in his successful run for the Democrat-held Massachusetts senate seat.

Republican David Wilkins, who preceded Jacobson to Ottawa as George W. Bush's ambassador to Canada, said Tuesday the chances of a cap-and-trade bill getting passed anytime soon are "slim" at best.

"A year ago, the world was euphoric over the inauguration of President Obama. And if I'd have said a year later to the day that a little known Republican senator from Massachusetts is going to take Ted Kennedy's seat, you'd think we were out of our minds," Wilkins said in a telephone interview from his native South Carolina.

"There's no question the political sands are shifting again in our country, from health care and cap-andtrade, for example, to the economy and jobs," he added.

"But as far as a cap and trade bill, per se, I think it's dead for the foreseeable future."

Wilkins said Republicans and Democrats will both have to make compromises if Obama's agenda is to gain any traction.

With Brown's election, the Democrats hold a 59-41 advantage in the senate - one vote short of the vote the party needs to overcome Republican filibusters.

One of the few potential Republican compromisers is Wilkins' good friend from South Carolina, Sen. Lindsey Graham. Wilkins said Graham is committed to the reducing greenhouse gas emissions and has shown some significant bipartisan behaviour by penning an opinion article with Democratic Sen. John Kerry for U.S. newspapers.

"He believes that climate change is real and that we need to address it. He also realizes there aredifferent opinions on how to address it," said Wilkins.

While Graham is a proponent of alternative energy sources such as wind power, and has toured Canada's carbon sequestration project in Weyburn, Sask., he is a big proponent of off-shore drilling - something Obama initially opposed when he was running for the presidency in 2008.

With the political battle lines being firmly drawn in the U.S., the Harper government should be more proactive than ever in pushing its own proposals with the Obama administration rather than taking a waitand- see attitude, said Colin Robertson, the retired diplomat with extensive experience at the Canadian embassy in Washington who hosted Jacobson's Ottawa speech.

"It's a permanent campaign. You never stop. You always have to be out making the case for Canada."

A year ago, when Obama visited Ottawa the main deliverable was the launch of a Clean Energy Dialogue that was supposed to study ways of co-operating on the environment, said Robertson.

"What I don't know is whether the Clean Energy Dialogue is more than just a name. It's up the air now since it's been launched."

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