World leaders eager for 'breakthrough' on climate: UN chief

UNITED STATES: UN chief Ban Ki-moon said a summit on climate change here on Monday had delivered "a clear call from world leaders for a breakthrough" at key talks looming in December.

"This event has sent a powerful political signal to the world, and to the Bali conference, that there is the will and the determination at the highest level, to break with the past and act decisively," Ban added.

He called it "a truly landmark event."

The December 3-14 conference in Bali, Indonesia, is tasked with setting down a roadmap for negotiations towards a new planetary deal on global warming after the first phase of the UN's Kyoto Protocol expires at the end of 2012.

"I now believe we have a major political commitment to achieving that," the UN secretary general said.

Monday's summit was attended by around 150 countries, more than 80 of them at the level of head of state or government, making it the seniormost gathering in UN history on global warming. It was not a pledging or negotiating session, but aimed at pushing climate change up the political agenda and clearing some of the diplomatic haze surrounding Bali.

"I heard the world's leaders confirm that climate change is indeed happening and is largely caused by human activity," said Ban, giving a summary of what was said in the day's speeches.

"The accounts offered by leaders of the most vulnerable nations, especially small island developing states, were particularly telling."

Ban sketched areas where there had been broad consensus but also acknowledged clear areas of contention. These included whether there should be a long-term goal for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

European countries on Monday called for the world to set a target of halving emissions by 2050 compared with a 1990 benchmark and to peg global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) to limit damage to Earth's fragile climate system.

Meanwhile leaders from 11 tropical nations, including Brazil and Indonesia, reaffirmed their commitment on the sidelines of a UN summit on climate change to conserve their forests but warned they faced a hard task.

The countries, which together control half of the world's tropical forests, vowed cooperation "to slow, stop and reverse the loss of forest cover and to promote the rehabilitation of degraded forest lands, forest management and conservation."

New York, Tuesday, AFP.