By Alister Doyle and Gerard
Wynn
BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Climate
talks ending on Friday made progress towards a new U.N. treaty to
curb global warming but fell short of calls by developing nations
for the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas
emissions.
Four years of talks to widen the
existing Kyoto Protocol have struggled to agree how to share the
cost. The United States and Europe warned in closing remarks in
Bonn that the private sector would finance the climate fight, not
their governments.
"I look back on this as a
significant session that has advanced our work in important ways,"
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told a
news conference of the June 1-12 meeting among 183
nations.
He said governments staked out far
clearer views after a first review of a draft legal text of a
treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to succeed the
Kyoto Protocol. It will curb greenhouse gases mainly emitted by
burning fossil fuels.
Developing countries called for
more.
"We finally managed to have a
positive exchange on the numbers" for developed nations, China's
climate ambassador Yu Qingtai said. China and the United States are
top emitters.
"But still we hear repeated
statements resisting calls for further meaningful cuts," he told
Reuters.
China and many developing nations
want the rich to cut by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by
2020 to avoid the worst of global warming such as droughts, floods
and rising sea levels.
FUNDS
Poor countries say developed
nations got rich on industrialisation which spewed greenhouse gases
into the air, and want to be paid to avoid the same high-carbon
growth.
The United States and Europe
poured cold water on hopes of substantial public funds, such as 1
percent of national wealth or more as demanded by many developing
countries.
"The key issue is not the number,"
said Jonathan Pershing, head of the U.S. delegation, referring to
"marginally" bigger investments to improve efficiency or to install
low-carbon instead of polluting coal plants.
"We'd like to change that" view of
developing countries that governments would bankroll the fight
against climate change, he said, adding carbon offset markets could
play a big role. The European Union also underscored private
finance would dominate.
Pershing said progress in Bonn had
been "slow," and the European Commission's Artur Runge-Metzger said
"enormous effort" was required to get a deal in Copenhagen in
December.
The United States expected China
to undertake actions, such as renewable energy targets, but not be
legally bound to prove curbs on emissions. China and the United
States are the top two emitters.
"We have advanced perhaps a couple
of miles towards Copenhagen. We still have thousands to go," said
Jennifer Morgan of the London-based E3G think-tank.
Outside the talks in a Bonn hotel,
protesters brought along two live camels and laid out some sand to
illustrate fears of creeping desertification. "We spit on weak
targets," one banner said, another said: "Shrinking targets,
growing deserts."
The chair of a group looking at
new actions to curb emissions by all countries said a draft text
had swollen with new ideas from about 50 pages to 200. Big
breakthroughs were likely to happen only in Copenhagen, he
said.
"This is like the evolutionary
process in reverse. The Big Bang comes at the end," said Michael
Zammit Cutajar, of Malta.
-- For Reuters latest environment
blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/
(Editing by Richard
Balmforth)