Next US president urged to outline climate policy

The next U.S. president should signal a shift in global warming policies before taking office to help a U.N. meeting in Poland in December take steps to work out a new climate treaty, Poland said on Wednesday.

Under President George W. Bush, the United States is the only rich nation opposed to the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol capping greenhouse gas emissions until 2012. Many nations expect a shift under Bush's successor, whether a Democrat or a Republican.

"The American approach is changing," Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki told a news conference during a visit to Oslo to discuss Poland's hosting of the main U.N. climate talks in 2008, in Poznan from Dec. 1-12.

"Unfortunately the Poznan conference is between the election and the (inauguration) of the new president. So it is difficult," he said. The election is on Nov. 4 and Bush steps down on Jan. 20, 2009.

"We expect at least a declaration from the president-elect, a clear declaration of a changing of attitudes to the entire problem. That could be a very important step for creating a new Protocol," Nowicki said.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton all favour far tougher caps on greenhouse gas emissions than the largely voluntary approach under Bush.

Many nations are awaiting the policies of the next president before deciding their own level of ambition. The United States and China are the top greenhouse gas emitters, mainly from burning greenhouse gases.

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Bush argues Kyoto would cost too much and wrongly omits goals for poor countries such as China and India. His administration agreed last year to a U.N. goal of working out a new long-term treaty by the end of 2009 to combat climate change after Kyoto's first period.

Under a plan agreed in Bali, Indonesia, in December, Poznan will be the half-way mark towards agreeing a new climate pact in Copenhagen in late 2009 to help slow ever more droughts, floods, melting of glaciers, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

Nowicki said that Poznan should discuss issues such as how to finance the fight against climate change, and to help poor people adapt. U.N. studies project that developing nations are likely to be hardest hit by disruptions to farming.

"Generous financing is needed to get the developing world into a deal," Norwegian Environment Minister Erik Solheim said.

Nowicki also said that Poland had commissioned a report for the conference about the possibility, strongly favoured by Japan, for curbs on industrial sectors such as the amount of carbon dioxide emitted to produce a tonne of steel or cement.