clipped from: today.reuters.com NAIROBI (Reuters) - This week's U.N. climate talks kept a plan for fighting global warming on track for expansion beyond 2012, but breakthroughs look unlikely before U.S. President George W. Bush steps down, experts said on Saturday.
"Everyone is waiting for the United States. I think the whole process will be on ice until 2009," when Bush's second term expires, said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.
The United States is the biggest source of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and Bush's decision to reject caps under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol discourages involvement by other big-polluting outsiders such as China and India.
After two weeks of talks, about 70 environment ministers in Nairobi agreed on Friday to a 2008 review of Kyoto as a possible prelude to deeper emission cuts by rich nations beyond 2012 and steps by developing countries to brake rising emissions.
They also agreed modest schemes to help Africa adapt to the feared effects of climate change such as drought, storms, disease and rising seas. Ministers agreed to promote green technologies, such as wind or solar power, in the poorest continent.
Many said work on extending Kyoto was too sluggish when investors, for instance a firm building a coal-fired power plant, needed years to plan. Kyoto obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
"It is increasingly clear that global emissions will have to be halved by mid-century if we are to have a chance of keeping climate change within tolerable limits," said European Commissioner Stavros Dimas.
He said countries had to "step up efforts to complete the process as soon as possible". Continued...