Bali talks to seek global climate deal in 2009

BALI, Indonesia - About 190 nations meet on the Indonesian island of Bali from Monday to build on a "fragile understanding" that the fight against global warming needs to be expanded to all nations with a deal in 2009.

The December 3-14 talks, involving more than 10,000 delegates in a tightly guarded idyllic beach resort, will seek to launch negotiations meant to end with a U.N. new pact in two years' time including outsiders led by the United States and China.

So far, only 36 industrialised nations in the Kyoto Protocol have caps on greenhouse gas emissions running to 2012. However, bleak U.N. reports this year warning of more heatwaves, droughts and rising seas have said global curbs are needed fast.

But working out a fair share of curbs on emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, between rich countries and poor nations led by China and India will be a huge puzzle.

"We heard no dispute that developed countries need to keep taking the lead," wrote Howard Bamsey of Australia and Sandea De Wet of South Africa in a report after a set of U.N. talks reviewing new ways to fight climate change since 2005.

They said there was agreement more needed to be done, but disagreement about how. Some countries were willing to make deeper cuts in emissions, others said existing promises should be kept and still others wanted incentives to join in.

"More discussions will be needed to build on this fragile understanding and explore how it can be put into practice," they wrote in a report to be submitted in Bali.

BUSH

Prospects for a global deal have been boosted by a decision by President George W. Bush for the United State to take part beyond 2012. Bush opposes Kyoto as a threat to U.S. economic growth and said it unfairly excluded goals for poor nations.

"We'd like to see consensus on the launch of negotiations. We want to see a Bali roadmap," said Paula Dobriansky, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs.

"We will go to Bali with openness, flexibility."

The United Nations wants a new pact to be agreed at U.N. talks in 2009 in Copenhagen -- after Bush has left the White House. Many countries are likely to want to await the policies of the next president and want assurances of aid.

Senior Beijing officials told Reuters last week that China would do more to strengthen its existing domestic targets to improve energy efficiency, and thereby curb greenhouse gas emissions, if the West shared relevant technologies.

"If help is forthcoming, if international cooperation is as it should be ... we will definitely do more," climate change negotiator Yu Qingtai said.

Rich nations want developing nations to at least brake the rise of their emissions -- China is opening a new coal-fired power plant at the rate of more than one a week and is set to overtake the United States as the top emitter.

Environment Ministers from around the world will attend the final days of the Bali talks, which will also include meetings by trade and finance ministers.

Developing countries will push for a new system of credits to help slow the rate of deforestation. Trees store carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, when they grow.

Kyoto's first period will run out in 2012 but the United Nations says that a new accord needs to be in place by the end of 2009 to give time for parliaments to ratify.

Delegates will also fete Kyoto's 10th anniversary -- it was agreed in the Japanese city on December 11, 1997.