A top UN official suggested a 2020 emissions goal for developing nations today as part of a new UN climate pact, as China and the United States sought common ground to fight global warming.
Many nations expressed worries about a lack of urgency in the negotiations, less than two months before 190 nations are meant to agree a new UN pact in Copenhagen to succeed the existing Kyoto Protocol.
In New Delhi, Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, suggested that poor nations could slow the projected growth of their emissions by 15 per cent by 2020 to help ensure an agreement.
A dispute about sharing out the burden of curbs on greenhouse gases between rich and poor nations is one of the main stumbling blocks. Mr De Boer said a "balanced agreement" was needed to overcome "mistrust and suspicion".
The UN climate panel in 2007 said rich nations would have to cut their emissions by 25-40 per cent by 2020 below 1990 levels to limit temperature rises to two degrees and avoid the worst of heatwaves, floods, and rising seas.
It said developing nations should show a "substantial deviation" below the projected growth of emissions - but did not set a figure.
"If industrialised countries are reducing by 25-40 per cent by 2020 then I think you would also by 2020 perhaps need to see something in the order of a 15 percent deviation below business as usual in developing countries," Mr de Boer said.
The European Union wants developing nations to curb growth by 15-30 per cent by 2020. Developing nations have long objected that offers of cuts by the rich so far fall well short of 25 per cent.
In Beijing, China and the United States, the top greenhouse gas emitters, spoke of willingness to co-operate.
Reuters