Bali talks seek new climate pact, poor at risk

"The world is watching closely," Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told delegates at the Dec. 3-14 meeting trying to bind outsiders led by the United States and China into a long-term U.N.-led fight against warming.
"Climate change is unequivocal and accelerating," he was quoted by Reuters as telling an opening ceremony in a luxury beach resort on the Indonesian island. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the most severe impacts of climate change will be felt by poor nations."
After a year of intense climate diplomacy and bleak U.N. reports about the risks of climate change, 10,000 delegates will try to agree to launch negotiations on a broad U.N. pact by late 2009 to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
A new treaty is meant to widen the Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrial countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. The United States and developing nations have no caps under Kyoto.
Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Secretariat, said the rich had to agree to axe emissions from burning fossil fuels to encourage poor nations to start braking their own rising emissions even as they burn more energy to ease poverty.