Governments pleased with "defining" climate deal

By Adhityani Arga

NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - Governments hailed a deal on Saturday to start negotiations to adopt a new climate pact, but environmental groups said the agreement lacked teeth.

The deal binds the United States and China to greenhouse gas goals for the first time and a two-year agenda would lead to the adoption in Copenhagen in 2009 of a tougher, wider pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Reuters after the meeting in a luxury Indonesian beach resort: "All the 188 countries have recognized that this is the defining agenda for all humanity, for all planet Earth."

But while calling many parts of the deal "quite positive", White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the United States "does have serious concerns about other aspects of the decision as we begin the negotiations."

Negotiators "must give sufficient emphasis to the important and appropriate role that the larger emitting developing countries should play," Perino said.

Washington has stressed any agreement must include all countries with high greenhouse emissions, including fast-growing China and India, which were exempt from the Kyoto requirements.

Environmental groups said the agreement lacked teeth after the European Union abandoned wording urging rich countries to step up the fight against climate change.

Weary delegates gave the United States an ovation after the world's top greenhouse gas emitter dropped last-minute opposition to an agreement after a sleepless night of talks which had passed their Friday deadline.

"We now have one of the broadest negotiating agendas ever on climate change," James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on environmental quality, said in Bali.

The United States had dropped opposition to Indian demands to soften developing nation commitments to a new pact. President George W. Bush in 2001 refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol saying it wrongly exempted developing nations.

CONSENSUS

"There is only one planet. Together, developed and developing countries can reach success," said EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the united stance of European countries at Bali, calling it "an important basis for the good result. Of course the path to a successor agreement for the Kyoto Protocol will be difficult. but I am sure the mandate from Bali will soon be shown to be groundbreaking."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown called it "a vital step forward for the whole world. Now begins the hardest work, as all nations work towards a deal in Copenhagen in 2009 to address the defining challenge of our time."

Developing nations also welcomed the deal.