ATTEMPTS to devise a successor to the Kyoto Protocol to combat global warming inched forward last night with delegates preparing to agree to restart negotiations next year.

After ten painful days of talks in Montreal, the United States again defied international opinion by refusing to sign up to the plan, which set down the first steps to extend Kyoto beyond 2012.

President Bush has consistently argued that the Kyoto agreement, which sets legal limits on carbon emissions, would harm the American economy and countries should instead invest in new technologies to solve the problem.

The failure to come up with a more substantive deal, despite the last-minute intervention of the former President, Bill Clinton, will anger other countries and the environmentalists who have staked out the conference for the past ten days.

Environmentalists and businesses have hoped for a clear deadline for the end of talks. They wanted a 2008 guillotine for the negotiations to give them time to plan investments in clean energy such as solar or wind power.

The Montreal meeting, attended by almost 10,000 delegates, environmentalists, business representatives and others, was the first annual UN climate conference since the Kyoto Protocol took effect last February. The protocol insists that member nations begin talks now on the setting of emission controls for after 2012, when the Kyoto regime expires.

Much of the discussion has focused on the intransigence of the United States, which inflamed many delegates. This contrasts with the vital role played by Vice-President Al Gore in the negotiations that secured the Kyoto agreement in the mid-1990s. Although the United States is not one of the 157 countries that subscribed to the Kyoto Protocol, Canada wanted a deal on open-ended talks among all countries about long-term co-operation on climate change. But delegates said the American negotiator on climate change, Harlan Watson, walked out of a session of talks overnight, saying the proposals by Canada for dialogue on long-term actions was tantamount to entering negotiations.

Mr Clinton told the conference yesterday that the Bush Administration was “flat wrong” to claim that reducing greenhouse gas emissions would damage America’s economy.

According to Mr Clinton, a serious effort to develop energy-saving technology would allow the US to “meet and surpass the Kyoto targets in a way that would strengthen, and not weaken, our economies”.

Last night about 90 countries were on the verge of announcing an agreement to start negotiations next year for the second phase of the protocol. This would give members seven years to negotiate and ratify accords by the time the first phase ends in 2012.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, 40 industrialised nations agreed to cut emissions in 2008-12 by more than 5 per cent from the levels they were at in 1990. Most countries agree, however that deeper and more long-term cuts will be needed to avoid destructive climate changes in the coming decades.

There is also pressure to draw in developing giants such as China and India, whose fast-growing economies rely heavily on dirty energy. Those countries reject curbs on emissions, but could benefit from the conference’s long-term agreements to help them to develop cleaner technology.

Last week delegates finalised a rule-book for Kyoto, formally making it fully operational after years of negotiation and ratification.

Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, who is representing the European Union, said:“Let’s hope we are now in false despair. What I can certainly say to you is, it is absolutely clear that it is possible to get agreement here if there is the political will to do so.”

KYOTO: AIMS AND FAILURES OF CLIMATE CONTROL

• The Kyoto Protocol, ratified by 156 countries, came into force in February this year
• It sets binding targets for 39 industrialised countries; only significant ones that have not signed up are the US and Australia
• It sets them individual targets for cutting emissions by the period 2008 to 2012, compared with levels in 1990
• In 2003 Britain’s emission of greenhouse gases was 13 per cent down on 1990 levels, slightly ahead of its EU-appointed target of 12.5 per cent
• Britain is missing Government’s target of cutting emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010. Cuts were made possible by shift from coal-fired power stations to gas in early 1990s
• Spain’s emissions in 2003 were up by nearly 42 per cent on 1990 levels; Portugal’s 37 per cent; Greece’s and Ireland's by 26 per cent
• If signatories overshoot, they will have to make both the promised cuts and 30 per cent more in a second period from 2013
• Now pressure to draw in large developing countries such as China and India, which were not included in the first phase of Kyoto

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