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EU says compromise is acceptable at Bali talks

The document is to guide talks on a pact to fight global warming.

By Assocaited Press
Published December 15, 2007

BALI, Indonesia - The European Union said today that it supported a compromise proposal on forthcoming negotiations for a new global warming pact, bringing the contentious talks nearer to resolution.

A spat between the United Nations and China delayed final approval. China said delegates were being urged to vote on the document even though developing nations were still negotiating for changes. India also objected to a part of the text.

The two-week conference has been marked by a fierce battle between the EU, which had argued for explicit goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and the United States, which said targets should be determined by two years of forthcoming talks.

Humberto Rosa, a Portuguese environment official representing the EU, told delegates the proposal had been brokered in a "good cooperative atmosphere."

"It results from a compromise," Rosa said. "It was elaborated with the engagement of all the parties."

Talks on the document, which lays out the agenda for negotiations leading to a pact taking effect at the end of 2012, had run through the night. Delegates debated how far future talks should go in trying to cut emissions of greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

After closed-door talks, delegates reconvened in the morning to consider the compromise proposal. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon was arriving later, either to announce the launching of the "Bali Roadmap" negotiations or to help break any lingering impasse.

The negotiating agenda set at Bali, and the results of two years of negotiations to follow, will help determine for decades how well the world can hold down its rising temperatures.

Delegates had sparred for days over the wording of the conference's main document. The most contentious point was the EU's push to set a goal of reducing industrial nations' emissions 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Trying to break the deadlock, conference president and Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar proposed language dropping explicit mention of numbers while substituting a reference to a U.N. scientific report suggesting the 25-40 percent range of cuts.

Witoelar's proposal provided a basis for a compromise, producing a relatively vague mandate for the two years of negotiations. As worded, his draft "Bali Roadmap" would not guarantee any level of binding commitment by any nation.

Fast Facts:

U.S. role in Bali

The United States has come under intense criticism in Bali, including from former Vice President Al Gore, over the Bush administration's opposition to mandatory emission cuts. But all parties acknowledged that negotiations cannot succeed without the involvement of the United States, the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

The task before the U.N. conference was to launch negotiations on a plan to bring deeper emissions reductions. That plan is to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which requires 37 industrial nations to cut output of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

[Last modified December 15, 2007, 01:34:03]