NUSA DUA, Indonesia - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world on Wednesday to agree to work out a new climate treaty by 2009 and said detailed greenhouse gas cuts can be worked out after U.N. talks in Bali.
Entering a dispute pitting the United States against the European Union and some developing nations, Ban said the overriding goal of the December 3-14 meeting was to agree to launch negotiations on a pact to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol.
Ban told more than 120 environment ministers that climate change was the "moral challenge of our generation" and said there was a "desperate urgency" to act to curb rising seas, floods, droughts, famines and extinctions of wildlife.
"The time to act is now," Ban told the ministers, split over the ground rules for agreeing to launch formal negotiations on a new long-term global treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions, expanding the 37-nation Kyoto pact to all countries.
Washington is leading opposition at talks of any mention of scientific evidence of a need for cuts in greenhouse gases of 25 to 40 percent by 2020 below 1990 levels as part of the guidelines for negotiations.
"Practically speaking this will have to be negotiated down the road," Ban said, echoing a view given by Washington. "We have two years' time before we can conclude an international deal on this issue."
Still, he also said that countries should respect a finding by the U.N. climate panel that a range of 25-40 percent was needed to avert the worst impacts of climate change.
ROADMAP
"You need to set an agenda -- a roadmap to a more secure climate future, coupled with a tight timeline that produces a deal by 2009," he said. The United Nations wants a new pact adopted at a meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009.
The United States, supported by Japan, Canada and Australia, says that even a non-binding mention of a 25-to-40 percent range could prejudge the outcome of negotiations.
