UN negotiations for a global climate treaty resumed in Bangkok on Monday amid fears that delegates will fail to agree on a draft text ahead of December's crucial showdown in Copenhagen.
A power station is seen in Sun Valley, California. UN negotiations for a global climate treaty resumed in Bangkok on Monday amid fears that delegates will fail to agree on a draft text ahead of December's crucial showdown in Copenhagen.
The talks are the latest session in nearly two years of haggling -- known as the "Bali Road Map" -- that have fallen far short of an agreement to tackle climate change beyond 2010.
"Our children and grandchildren will never forgive us unless action is taken. Time is running out, we have two months before Copenhagen," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told around 2,500 delegates as the talks opened.
"Much needs to be done and much needs to be resolved. Let us use the two weeks in Bangkok to the full to ensure the future."
The Bangkok talks, part of the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), run to October 9 and are the next to last negotiations before Copenhagen's deadline meeting.
They follow last week's UN climate summit in New York and a G20 leaders' meeting in Pittsburgh, which failed to break the deadlock on either of the two biggest issues -- reducing carbon emissions and meeting the associated costs.
The final talks before Copenhagen are in Barcelona from November 2-6.
UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on the eve of the meetings in the Thai capital that there was intense pressure on the participants.
"We're arriving here in Bangkok with about, I think, a 280-page negotiating text which is basically impossible to work with," de Boer told AFP in Bangkok.
"We've got 16 days of negotiating time left before Copenhagen so things are getting tight and we need to get to a result."
Experts warn that global temperatures must rise no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100 over pre-industrial times, a target embraced by the leaders of the G8 nations in July.
Scientists also say emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases should peak just six years from now.
Without drastic action, they fear drought, floods and rising sea levels could grip the world by the end of the century, causing famine, homelessness and strife.
On emissions, developed economies have acknowledged a historical responsibility for global warming. Most have put numbers on the table for slashing their carbon pollution by 2020 and by 2050.
But, they say, developing nations -- especially China, India and Brazil and other major emitters of tomorrow -- should also pledge to curb output of greenhouse gases.
Poor and emerging economies refuse to take on their own hard targets but call for rich nations to make higher cuts than they have set themselves for 2020.
President Hu Jintao did vow at the UN last week to make China's economy less carbon intensive -- essentially promising to use fossil fuels more efficiently -- by a "notable margin" before 2020. But he put no numbers on the table.
China has overtaken the United States as top carbon polluter, according to several scientific assessments. Together, the two nations account for 40 percent of greenhouse gases.
Campaigners are looking to the US to take the lead in pushing for a pact, although it has so far offered much lower targets for emissions cuts by 2020 than other developed economies.
"Either the US lifts its game, or the next two weeks in Bangkok could go down as just a holding pattern before a fatal nosedive in Copenhagen", said Antonio Hill, senior climate policy adviser at Oxfam International.
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