Global warming pact set for 2009 after US backs down

World climate negotiators set a 2009 deadline Saturday for a landmark treaty to fight global warming after two weeks of intense haggling led to a climbdown by an isolated United States.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who flew to the Indonesian island of Bali for a late appeal for flexibility, praised the deal as a “pivotal first step” to confront climate change, “the defining challenge of our time.”

Following gruelling all-night talks, the conference of 190 nations finally launched a process to negotiate a new treaty for when the UN Kyoto Protocol’s commitments expire in 2012.

It comes after a year of stark warnings from Nobel-winning scientists, who say millions of people will be at risk of hunger, homelessness and disease by 2100 if temperatures keep rising at current rates.

The United States, the only major industrialised nation to reject the Kyoto treaty, reached a compromise with the European Union to avoid mentioning any figures as a target for slashing greenhouse gas emissions.

The deal instead only makes an indirect reference to scientists’ warnings that the world must sharply cut back its emissions to prevent what could be a catastrophic rise in temperatures. But after the summit went into an unscheduled 13th day of talks, the United States said it would not accept the statement as it wanted developing countries such as fast-growing China to make tougher commitments.

The senior US negotiator, Paula Dobriansky, said she had heard “many strong statements from many major developing country leaders on a greater role in helping to address urgently this global problem.”

It “doesn’t seem it’s going to be reflected in our outcome here in the declaration,” she said, explaining why the United States would reject the draft. Dobriansky was loudly booed by other delegations, and a US environmental activist representing Papua New Guinea said to rousing cheers: “If you’re not willing to lead, please get out of the way.”

After repeated verbal lashings, Dobriansky again took the microphone and said that Washington would “go forward and join consensus,” to the cheers of the conference.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, a strong critic of US President George W. Bush’s climate policy, said he was ready to ask through his mobile telephone for Chancellor Angela Merkel to intervene with the White House.

Bali, Sunday, AFP