U.N. climate talks agree on blueprint for action

By Joe Ortiz

VALENCIA, Spain (Reuters) - A U.N. climate conference agreed on Friday on a blueprint for fighting global warming and said governments have only a few years to avert some of the worst impacts.

Delegates at the 130-nation talks stood and applauded after chairman Rajendra Pachauri brought down the gavel on the November 12-17 meeting in Valencia, Spain, that wraps up six years of work on the most authoritative review of climate science.

Government delegates and scientists agreed a summary of some 20 pages late on Friday about the mounting risk of climate change -- ranging from extinctions to rising sea levels -- and condensing 3,000 pages of science published earlier this year.

"This is the strongest report yet by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) but says that there is still time to act," said Bill Hare, an Australian climate scientist who was among the authors.

The document will put pressure on environment ministers who will meet next month in Bali, Indonesia, to do more to combat warming. Many countries hope that Bali will agree a two-year roadmap to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the main U.N. plan for fighting warming until 2012.

"The report sends a very strong signal to Bali," said Hans Verolme, director of the WWF conservation group's climate change program. "Now it's up to the politicians."

Kyoto only sets binding goals for cutting greenhouse gases for 36 industrial nations. The United States and developing nations led by China, the two main emitters of greenhouse gases, are outside Kyoto.

BAN KI-MOON