The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Bali

The United States will not announce binding emission targets at a historic climate change conference in Indonesia, despite growing pressure from developing countries to take the lead in combating global warming.

U.S. climate chief Harlan Watson, who earlier this week outlined how Washington is fighting climate change with technology, aid and economic growth, said Saturday Bali was not the place to be talking mandatory emission cuts.

"We're not ready to do that here," Watson said.

Scientists say global emissions must be cut by 50 percent by 2050 to avoid dangerous warming that could result in worsening droughts, more severe storms and floods likely to impact tens of millions of people.

The U.S. position is likely to dash hopes among developing countries that emission cuts of 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 for industrialized countries would be included in a final agreement when the Bali conference ends Dec. 14.

Those numbers were agreed upon earlier this year by industrialized nations that signed the Kyoto Protocol, which was rejected by the United States as too costly for the U.S. economy, and unfair because it excluded China, India and other developing economies.

It commits three dozen industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse gases an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels between next year and 2012, when the protocol expires.

Despite the differences on how best to tackle global climate change, U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer said the first week of the conference had gone well, and he was optimistic they would come away with an agreement.

Trade ministers opened a new front in the global warming battle on Saturday on the fringe of U.N. climate talks in Bali bogged down in disputes between rich and poor over sharing out greenhouse gas curbs.

The U.N. meeting in Bali from December 3 to 14 is trying to launch two years of formal negotiations on a new pact to widen the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol to all nations beyond 2012, including a bigger role for the United States, China and India.

Thirty-two governments, including a dozen trade ministers started two days of discussions on how to enlist world trade to help slow warming, for example easing tariffs on climate-friendly goods and so spur a booming "green" economy.

"The meeting t emphasises the point that it's not just the environmental imperative we are dealing with, but the economic opportunities that come from solving climate change," Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean said.

"Climate change solutions open up important opportunities for jobs and trade," he told reporters. Ministers at the meeting included those from the United States, Australia, Brazil and Portugal, which holds the rotating European Union presidency.

The meeting, on the fringe of 190-nation climate talks involving about 10,000 delegates in a nearby resort on the Indonesian island, is the first time that annual U.N. climate talks have widened beyond environment ministers.

Differences over who should take the blame for, and do most to curb, greenhouse gas emissions threatened to deadlock the main talks, as Canada and Australia on Saturday joined Japan in calling for commitments from some developing countries.

"Australia's task is, at the appropriate time, to commit to targets but it's also to try and secure binding commitments from developing countries," said Australia's Crean.

Canada issued a statement saying "major, industrialised developing countries" should also have binding targets.

Developing nations, needing to burn more energy to end poverty, would find it "inconceivable" to accept bindings targets now, said the U.N.'s climate change chief Yvo de Boer.

De Boer said it was possible that a final Bali text would guide industrialised nations to curb their greenhouse gases by between 25 and 40 percent by 2020, an aspiration agreed earlier this year by countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.

At the climate talks, an alliance of 43 small island states urged even tougher action to fight climate change, saying they risked being washed off the map by rising seas and more powerful storms.

"We want to see drastic action," said Angus Friday of Grenada, chairman of the group in Bali.

Outside the conference centre, Balinese dancers used sticks to burst black balloons labelled "CO2", the main greenhouse gas.

About 20 finance ministers will join the fringes of the Bali meeting on Monday and Tuesday, in a sign of growing awareness of the economic effects of more droughts, floods and rising seas.

Highlighting opportunities for new technologies, a report issued in Bali said world annual investments in renewable energy will top $100 billion (49.3 billion pounds) for a first time in 2007.