KEY POINTS:
LONDON - It is vital the United States signs up to a global agreement on climate change, British Environment Minister David Miliband said on Wednesday ahead of talks to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
"I don't want to make predictions but it's essential for the world that America is part of a global agreement," said Miliband.
"They've got a huge contribution to make and it's important that they make it."
UN climate talks involving 189 nations start next week in Kenya to negotiate a successor to the UN's Kyoto Protocol, and a deal is expected to take up to three or more years.
US President George W. Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto treaty - which ties industrialised nations to 5 per cent cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 - because he said it unfairly exempted developing countries like China and India from the targets.
The principle that rich nations should do more must remain under a new agreement, said Miliband.
"The industrialised countries have got to make the greatest contribution. In a way the EU has tried to break out of a stalemate there by saying we are ready to take on hard targets."
Developing countries argue industrialised nations bear historical responsibility for most of the greenhouse gases which are in the atmosphere and blamed for global warming, and so should also bear the costs of action.
The European Union goes to Kenya offering to cut their emissions by 15 to 30 per cent by 2020. Britain and Germany have already proposed 30 per cent as the bloc's position. Miliband hopes a UK-backed report published on Monday, which painted an apocalyptic picture about any failure to act on global warming, will energise the Nairobi talks.
The report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern warned of economic collapse if the world failed to grasp the much smaller costs of tackling climate change.
The nagging concern is that Nairobi will be a talking shop and some experts reckon a deal might have to wait until 2010 after Bush steps down from the White House in Jan. 2009.
The meeting's setting in Africa, which Stern warned would suffer some of the worst near-term effects, might not be enough to spur the settlement of how to split a $400 million-plus climate change adaptation fund.
"Since it's in Africa it must make progress on adaptation," said Miliband.
"But we need to get the principles right for its implementation ... and we also need to get the governance right.
"I leave open as to how much we'll get done in Nairobi, I think time will tell."
- REUTERS
