Climate talks ‘on brink of agreement’

NEGOTIATORS working into this morning expect to reach a compromise on climate-protection talks that may bow to U.S. pressure to drop emission reduction targets.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which is overseeing the talks, said negotiators were “on the brink of agreement”.

The U.S. has “been as keen as everybody else to make sure it walks away from here with a deal that includes the U.S”.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was due to arrive in Bali this morning, either to announce the successful launching of the “Bali Roadmap“ negotiations, or to help break any lingering impasse.

The agreement will probably resolve an impasse over limits on emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

The U.S., the world’s biggest polluter, appears to have got its way on emissions targets in a draft of the document that will guide climate talks for the next two years.

The negotiating agenda set at Bali, and the results of two years of negotiations to follow, will help determine for decades how well the world can hold down its rising temperatures.

Representatives from more than 150 nations have been meeting for two weeks on the Indonesian island to negotiate the agenda for talks leading to a replacement for the emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol.

Delegates who wound up negotiations after 2am local time (6pm Irish time) said the talks would recommence at 8am (midnight Irish time).