The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Bali

The battle over whether to include greenhouse gas emissions targets in the "roadmap" for a new climate accord intensified Tuesday, with the Europeans and environmentalists clamoring for the targets against opposition by the U.S. and others.

Talks at the U.N. climate change conference, now in its second week, stepped up with the scheduled arrival of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Australia's new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who signed onto the Kyoto Protocol on global warming just last week. Delegates from 190 nations have been trying to hammer out a roadmap for negotiations for a pact to succeed Kyoto when it expires in 2012 but have struggled with the wording for the text.

A draft of the final document notes - in a nonbinding way - a widely accepted view that reductions of 25 percent to 40 percent in industrialized nations' overall emissions would be required by 2020, calling for even deeper cuts later.

The United States is resisting inclusion of the language. But Stavros Dimas, the European commissioner for environment, said it was crucial toward preventing global temperatures from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over preindustrial levels. "We need this range of reductions by developed countries," he told reporters Tuesday. "Science tells us that these reductions are necessary. Logic requires that we listen to science."

The European Union has itself committed to 20 percent to 30 percent reductions below 1990 levels by 2020.

Chief U.S. negotiator Harlan Watson has argued against including the targets, saying it would be premature to set goals - even non-binding ones - at the opening of what is expected to be at least two years of negotiation toward a post-Kyoto agreement.