Japan to pressure US on Kyoto

The deal was a relief to campaigners in Bonn

Japan has promised to do all it can to persuade the United States to join the international effort to tackle climate change.

In a last-minute compromise deal struck at talks in Bonn on Monday, 178 countries agreed to salvage the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, leaving the US diplomatically isolated.

Key points of deal

Finance - funding for poor countries to develop new technology

Mechanisms - tough systems in each country to verify and report carbon emissions

Sinks - heavily forested countries can use their 'tree sinks' to offset greenhouse gases

Compliance - countries that fail to keep to their greenhouse gas reduction targets should face legally binding consequences

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said it was important that all countries were bound by a single agreement.

But American representatives at the talks maintained the Kyoto process was not acceptable to Washington, and the US promised to come up with its own proposals to tackle global warming.

Details of the agreement struck in Bonn still have to be finalised, but the BBC's Elizabeth Blunt reports from Bonn that the compromise text now talks of helping countries to meet their targets for cutting emissions rather than punishing them if they do not.

Officials have admitted that the overall reduction in greenhouse gases will be lower than originally envisaged.

However, industrialised countries - including Canada, the EU countries, Norway and New Zealand - also pledged more than $400m to help the developing world deal with the effects of climate change.

We have re-established our sanity in harmony with the planet on which we are privileged to live - that is a supreme moment which we will all live to remember

UK Environment Minister Michael Meacher

After an all-night bargaining marathon into Monday morning, European Union ministers finally broke a deadlock with Japan on how the 1997 Kyoto Protocol would work in practice, paving the way for what is being seen as a historic deal.

Japan's support was crucial because, with the US now out of the picture, the protocol could come into force only if it was ratified by the other big polluters - the EU, Eastern Europe, Russia and Japan.

'US embarrassment'

BBC Washington correspondent Stephen Sackur says that it was an embarrassment for the US to be left isolated in Bonn.

He says the American inability to articulate a convincing alternative to the Kyoto process pointed to division and confusion within the president's own team.

The United States says the Kyoto Treaty is "fatally flawed"

Research suggests that by the year 2010, the US may be emitting 30% more greenhouse gases than it was in 1990.

The Europeans say the US will be welcomed back into the Kyoto fold if there is a change of heart in Washington.

But our correspondent says this is extremely unlikely. President Bush continues to believe that fundamental US economic interests are at stake, and has argued that Kyoto is "fatally flawed".

Mr Bush's representative in Bonn was heckled by delegates when she gave the US reaction to the agreement.

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"Although the United States does not intend to ratify the agreement we have not tried to stop others from moving ahead as long as US interests are not threatened," Under Secretary of State Paula Dobriansky said.

'Watered down'

The conference president, Dutch Environment Minister Jan Pronk, received several standing ovations during the emotional final session of negotiations.

Some analysts say the deal waters down considerably the provisions of the protocol as originally agreed four years ago.

Conference chairman Jan Pronk received several standing ovations

Kyoto required industrialised countries to cut their emissions of six gases believed to be exacerbating global warming to an average of 5.2% below their 1990 levels over the next 11 years.

The Bonn agreement, conservationists say, will reduce that 5.2% figure to about 2%. European Environment Commissioner Margot Wallstrom said the deal had serious gaps.

One contentious part of the compromise is the freedom it gives to countries to meet some of their pollution reduction targets by using "carbon sinks" - trees and other vegetation which absorb carbon.

This means they can make smaller and more electorally acceptable cuts in emissions from industry and transport.