VIENNA
Negotiators from 158 countries reached a basic agreement yesterday on rough targets aimed at getting some of the world's biggest polluters to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.
A weeklong UN climate conference concluded that industrialised countries should strive to cut emissions by 25%-40% of their 1990 levels by 2020.
Experts said that target would serve as a loose guide for a major international climate summit to be held in December in Bali, Indonesia.
"We have reached broad agreement on the main issues," said Leon Charles, a negotiator from Grenada.
Delegates worked into yesterday evening to overcome resistance from several countries - including Canada, Japan and Russia - that preferred a more open approach rather than setting emissions targets.
The 2020 targets are not binding, but they were seen as an important signal that industrialised nations are serious about slashing the amount of carbon dioxide and other dangerous gases to avert the most catastrophic consequences of global warming.
Yesterday's agreement sought to ease concerns the emissions target might be too ambitious for some nations, noting efforts to cut back on airborne pollutants are "determined by national circumstances and evolve over time".
But the agreement made clear that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced to "very low levels" to guard against potentially deadly flooding, drought and other fallout.
Meanwhile, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, proposed making per capita emissions of greenhouse gases the basis for future climate change negotiations yesterday, a suggestion aimed at persuading developing countries to join efforts to reduce global warming.
Merkel made the proposal in a speech at the confer- ence centre in Kyoto where, as Germany's Environment Minister, she took part in work on the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that requires developed countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5% from 1990 levels by 2012.
"The question is, by when will we be able to include the developing countries and what measures will we use to ensure a just world," she said.-AP
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