Afterwards, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed doubt that the forthcoming summit, in Cancún, Mexico from November 29 - December 10, will achieve a legally-binding and complete agreement.

The existing Kyoto agreement caps the carbon dioxide emissions of almost 40 developed countries up to 2012. It is the only legal agreement the developing countries have which forces the rich ones to actually do anything, and requires 37 industrial countries to cut emissions 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2012. New targets need the agreement of at least 143 countries - or three quarters of the pact's parties.

At Copenhagen last December, most countries signed up to an Accord intended to limit temperature rise to below 2°C, without saying how and with no legal clout. The Cancún summit is supposed to say how and be legally binding.

But, Ban told a questioner at a monthly news conference at U.N. headquarters on Monday, "It may be the case that we may not be able to have that comprehensive binding agreement in Cancún."

Rich and poor divided

Rich and poor countries are divided over who should bear the brunt of emissions cuts.

African states facing drought and low-lying states with disappearing coastlines say the $100 billion a year by 2020, promised in Copenhagen by developed countries to help them pay for mitigation and adaptation to climate change, is not enough - "little more than what bankers pay in bonuses".

But developed countries want a new agreement, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, to curb the fast-growing emissions by many poor ones.

The US was especially intransigent at Bonn, offering only to cut its emissions by 4% on 1990 figures, and unable to pass domestic legislation committing itself to any cuts at all. Hit by the recession, the US and Europe say they cannot afford these demands.

The African group, the small island states and many others attacked the rich countries for refusing to negotiate and put real commitments on the table.

They pointed to the floods in Pakistan, droughts in Russia, Sahel and Niger, and other recent examples of climate-change related natural disasters.

They demanded that any agreement limits future temperature rises not to below 2°C – as the Accord says – but to 1.5°C or lower.

Progress by sector
Christiana Figueres, the new head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said that she believed progress was made at the Bonn talks.

She said that sector-specific decisions made there can individually form the building blocks of a deal at Cancún, as they implement key elements of the Bali Action Plan.

(This Plan was agreed in 2007, and is the basis for work under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention (AWG-LCA) which is developing the global agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.)

In this scenario, individual countries could agree to, for example, manage and deploy climate finance, train-up workers, increase technology transfer, implement reforestation, and build capacity, especially in the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

"On the basis of these sectoral areas, we will try to build so that we will be able to move ahead in a more comprehensive way," Ban Ki-moon said. "First and foremost we must bridge the gap of trust between developed and developing countries."

The Cancún summit would have to include a mandate to work towards a combined agreement with legally binding status, that would not be reached at that summit but at the next, African one, in 2011, Figueres said.

The IPCC has contingency plans if no agreement is reached. These include cutting the number of countries required to approve any new targets or extending existing caps until 2013 or 2014.

High-level panel
Ban has also launched "a high-level panel" on global sustainability, co-chaired by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and South African President Jacob Zuma and including former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and U.S. envoy to the United Nations Susan Rice.

It is tasked with formulating recommendations on how to lift people out of poverty while respecting and preserving the climate, and will report by the end of next year.

There is one more United Nations Climate Change Conference before the Cancún summit, from 4 to 9 October in Tianjin, China. The negotiators are considering in the meantime a draft proposal text.

"To achieve the desired outcomes at Cancún, they must radically narrow down the choices now on the table," Figueres said.

"That needs to be at all levels - both technical and political - and I urge governments to agree further compromises, including at high-level meetings which are scheduled in Geneva and New York in September.

"Whatever governments decide to call the Cancún result, it has to deliver clear and unmistakable progress."

> http://unfccc.int/