Agreement likely on package of `core' issues

The Bonn climate change summit is likely to reach agreement on at least some outstanding issues confronting the negotiators, according to its chairman, Mr Jan Pronk.

In an upbeat review of progress so far, the Dutch Environment Minister said yesterday his impression from contacts with all sides was that it would be possible to reach a deal of some kind in Bonn.

Although he had been "a bit pessimistic" when he arrived, Mr Pronk said he now believed it would produce a result, although the definition of what constituted "a result" might not appeal to everybody.

As ministers began to inject political impetus into the process, Mr Pronk said: "I am talking about an agreement on a core package by Sunday . . My hopes are growing day by day."

Although the US had announced in March that the Kyoto Protocol was dead, it was still very much alive, Mr Pronk declared. He added: "All of a sudden, there is a spirit here that was not about before."

Mr Michael Zammit Cutajar, executive secretary of the UN Climate Change Convention, said President Bush's decision to quit Kyoto had "put it right up the political agenda and introduced a different dynamic".

Responding to questions about whether the US delegation in Bonn was being obstructive, Mr Pronk said it was participating "constructively" as a party to the convention, in line with Mr Bush's promise to EU leaders.

He said the success of the talks would be measured by "taking away stumbling blocks", both technical and more substantive, in the text being considered here by the representatives of 178 UN member-states.

"In all my meetings not a single government has said that it is not prepared to reach agreement before the end of the talks and not a single one has said it is not prepared to ratify the protocol in 2002," Mr Pronk said.

The conference chairman said that what should emerge on Sunday - and he conceded this could be in the realm of "self-fulfilling prophecy" - was a package of measures which governments could take back to their parliaments.

If this did not happen, there would be "a certain loss of political credibility". Asked if Kyoto would be dead in the event of no agreement emerging in Bonn, Mr Pronk said: "No, but it would be utterly sick."

He made it clear that his own proposals, which have been branded by environmentalists as too weak, were designed as a catalyst to enable a deal to be reached on the rules under which Kyoto would operate in practice.