Africans see positive signals at NY climate summit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Africa's negotiator in U.N. climate change talks said on Tuesday he was encouraged by the message coming from industrialized countries at a summit in New York aimed at breaking the deadlock before December.

Nearly 100 heads of state and government were in New York for a summit on climate change before official talks among 190 nations in Copenhagen in December to forge a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out at the end of 2012.

The talks have put developed and developing countries at odds over how to distribute emissions curbs. Poorer nations are pressing richer ones to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars a year to help them cope with rising temperatures.

"We are 80 days from Copenhagen and we need to go to Copenhagen with a real will to take concrete decisions," said Congo Republic's President Denis Sassou-Nguesso, who will represent the African Union at Copenhagen.

Sassou-Nguesso said in an interview he had seen some positive signs emerging from the speeches of the United States, China, Japan, France and other industrialized countries.

"It's not the time any more when the United States or even China did not give a positive message, for example at the time of the Kyoto protocol," he told Reuters.

U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States had done more over the eight months of his presidency to reduce carbon pollution than at any time in history and urged all nations to act together.

Chinese President Hu Jintao laid out a new plan to tackle China's emissions, tying them to economic growth.

Sassou-Nguesso said the forests of the Congo Basin were like the "second lung" of the world, along with the Amazon Basin, because they perform the vital task of converting carbon dioxide to oxygen.

"Africa is not just asking for compensation, Africa is bringing a contribution to the solution of these problems of climate change," he said.

Sassou-Nguesso said industrial countries which pollute the most must accept the responsibility of contributing more to solve the problem, for example by helping preserve the forests of the Congo Basin from exploitation.

"I felt this morning they have decided they will do it," Sassou-Nguesso said.