France says to push for climate change deal in 2008

PARIS (Reuters) - France will use its term as president of the European Union next year to lead the push for a new treaty on climate change, Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said on Friday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy was determined that the French presidency would be "exemplary and decisive" on climate change issues, Borloo told a news conference to outline the aims of his ministry, which he took over earlier this month.

The Kyoto Protocol, which calls for carbon emissions to be cut an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels, lapses in 2012 but progress on a successor agreement has been bogged down by disagreements over who should bear the burden of the reductions.

Kyoto supporters want to reach a new agreement at a conference in Bali at the end of 2007 but hopes of a deal have dimmed after the failure to agree on the groundwork for a deal at a U.N.-hosted meeting in Bonn last month.

A meeting in the Polish city of Poznan in December 2008 would be crucial, Borloo said.

"We are entering an intense phase internationally," he said.

France takes over the rotating EU presidency in the second half of next year and will coordinate the bloc's approach to the climate change negotiations.

"Preparation for the period after Kyoto will take place under the French presidency," Borloo said.

"We have an absolutely major European and international responsibility to make the post-Kyoto period a true change of course in the history of humanity."

Borloo said the Poznan meeting would be the last chance for a deal in time for 2012 because of the length of time it would take countries to ratify any new agreement.

"If we don't want a pause in the fight against climate change but an acceleration, December 2008 must be a major advance because the end of 2012 is tomorrow."

Borloo said the wide public concern and interest in climate change and environmental issues had completely transformed the significance of environmental policy.

He pointed to his ministry, which combines responsibility for transport, ecology and energy issues as a sign of the increased importance assigned to environmental issues by the new centre-right government.

Sarkozy has announced a special meeting in September of business and union leaders, environmental groups and government to thrash out a new approach to environmental policy.