Merkel G8 climate deal spurs hopes for global pact

By Noah Barkin and Alister Doyle

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (Reuters) - Germany's Angela Merkel exploited rising public pressure for action on climate change and her close ties to Washington to seal a G8 deal this week that revives hopes for a new global pact by 2009.

The German chancellor won wide praise even though she failed at the summit of major industrialized nations to win U.S. backing for the fixed emissions targets climate experts say are needed to counter dangerous changes to world weather patterns.

And it is unclear whether G8 countries -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- can convince big polluters like China and India to join in.

But by securing an agreement by G8 countries to push for a broad, new accord to extend and widen the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012, Merkel achieved more than she herself may have hoped just a few weeks ago.

"Merkel can be pragmatic and practical and I think she has achieved a bit more than she was thinking feasible," said Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber, head of a German climate change research institute and an adviser to Merkel. "I think she is good at the end game if she is face to face with leaders."

The United States, the only G8 country outside Kyoto, promised at the summit to back a global deal with "substantial" cuts in emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, to help prevent ever more droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

Officials familiar with the months-long talks to prepare the summit say Merkel set the bar high, instructing German negotiators to resist U.S. attempts to water down their targets.

At a G8 lunch on Thursday that was supposed to focus on the Middle East, Iran, Darfur and Kosovo, Merkel surprised leaders by raising the climate issue in a final push to get a deal.

COAL, NO SPEED LIMITS

A former environment minister, Merkel has come under criticism for not always practicing at home what she preaches abroad. Over two dozen high-polluting brown coal-fired power plants are being built in Germany and her government has refused to put a speed limit on German motorways.

But her talents as a mediator and negotiator are not in question. Merkel made her mark after taking office in late 2005 by brokering an elusive European Union budget deal.

In March, she pushed fellow EU leaders to commit to ambitious cuts in greenhouse gases. Later this month, she hopes to crown her EU presidency with a "road map" for reviving the bloc's stalled constitution.

The same understated diplomacy that has helped her secure deals within the EU was on display as she hosted G8 leaders at this seaside Baltic resort.

Hans Verolme, a climate expert at the WWF environmental group, said Merkel stayed on at a meeting of G8 negotiators until 2 a.m. on Thursday as they haggled over the wording of the G8 climate declaration.

In recent months, Merkel and British Prime Minister Tony Blair made regular calls to Bush to press him for a compromise.