EU president Sweden says U.N. climate talks too slow

BEIJING (Reuters) - Global climate talks are progressing too slowly and too many countries are demanding action from others rather than acting by themselves, Sweden's Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said on Monday in Beijing.

Sweden holds the rotating presidency of the European Union for the rest of the year, during which time global climate talks, culminating in a conference in Copenhagen in December, are supposed to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

"The negotiations are too slow because too many are pointing at others and requesting them to do more," Carlgren told a briefing in Beijing on Monday.

The EU had no "plan B" beyond Copenhagen, he said.

"That's why the EU has said we'll reduce emissions by 20 percent regardless.

"So if other parties would start in this way, moving forward, we would achieve great things in Copenhagen," said Carlgren, adding that he had had a frank exchange with Chinese officials.

China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases because of its rapidly expanding economy and dependence on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.

Developing nations led by China and India say rich countries should aim for cuts in emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, of at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Last week, leaders at the 17-member Major Economies Forum in Italy agreed that global temperature rises should be limited to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but also said developing nations such as China and India should commit to meaningful carbon reduction targets of their own after 2012.

Carlgren said the E.U. agreed that developing countries "should present mid-term targets that would lead to meaningful deviation from business as usual."

That would mean a reduction in CO2 emissions in India and China of 15-30 percent compared to current "business as usual" projections, he said.

CHINA VISIT

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke are visiting China this week to press Chinese leaders to join stepped-up efforts to fight global warming.

The trip also sets the stage for a visit by President Barack Obama to China later this year that many environmental experts hope will focus on the need for joint U.S.-China action before the Copenhagen meeting.

The United States signed but never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, becoming the only major developed nation to remain outside the treaty.

Many in Washington opposed a pact that did not set a ceiling for future emissions growth by China and other big developing powers.

Since winning last year's election, Obama has made fighting climate change a major policy focus and wants to introduce a cap-and-trade system to curb carbon emissions.

Kyoto held developed countries to a higher standard than developing countries, since the former were committed to caps on emissions, while the latter had no such obligation.

But tensions have continued to simmer over the Kyoto principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" between industrialized nations and the developing world, with critics in the West saying China and India have effectively been given a free ride.

Carlgren said everybody needed to make sacrifices.

"Even if developed countries reduced their emissions to zero, it would still not be enough," Carlgren said, adding that China shared that view.

"We still expect more from China, just as we know China expects more from developed countries."

(Reporting by David Stanway; Writing by Tom Miles; Editing by David Fogarty)
EU president Sweden says U.N. climate talks too slow

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