U.N. says Bush climate plan just a "first offer"

By Emma Graham-Harrison

BEIJING (Reuters) - The top U.N. official on climate change said on Thursday that he sees a U.S. plan to cap rising emissions by 2025 as only a "first offer", adding that all three presidential candidates had promised a tougher stand.

Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, also said that as the fight against climate change gets more urgent, the world will have to embrace nuclear power and provide more support to developing nations.

"I see this very much as a first offer from the United States," he told journalists when asked whether the proposal unveiled last week by current President George W. Bush might discourage China from taking faster action on emissions.

"The three presidential candidates ... all have climate change high up on their agenda and I'm confident that after the elections we will have an ambitious U.S. stance."

De Boer also backed nuclear power, which emits no greenhouse gasses but is rejected by some environmentalists.

"If you look at the scale of the challenge I find it very difficult to conceive how we can get to grips with it unless nuclear energy has a role," he said during a visit to the Chinese capital for a forum on science and technology.

China's top climate change official, Vice-Minister Xie Zhenhua, called at the start of the meeting for an international technology transfer fund to ease poorer nations' transition to a less carbon-intensive economy.

"Developing countries lack advanced technology for tackling climate change, so developed countries, for the benefit of the planet, should take tangible measures to remove barriers to technology transfer," Xie said in a speech.