The Kyoto summit on climate change has ended with the developed world committing itself to cuts of 6% below 1990 levels.

The deal was announced by the chairman of the core team of conference negotiators, Raul Estrada.

Delegates are desperate to hammer out an agreement

The United States began the conference by proposing that it would maintain its own emissions at 1990 levels.

There was no indication whether Americans had won out over the controversial question of whether governments would have the right to buy emission quotas allocated to other countries.

The United States had wanted to allow a greenhouse gas trading system to cut emissions of global pollutants, whereby rich, industrial nations could buy the right to produce more emissions from countries which have fallen short of their allocations.

European ministers said that the proposal was irresponsible and the United States was looking for loopholes.

Sharp divisions between US and European negotiators appear to have been overcome.

The EU originally wanted to impose legally binding cuts of 15% on developed countries' output of greenhouse gases, while the United States proposed an overall cut of 5% .

Europeans accused the United States of not offering enough cuts. The United States is responsible for 24% of the world's carbon dioxide.

VP Al Gore gave US negotiators the go-ahead to relax their position

The US Vice President, Al Gore, in a one-day drop-in on the talks on Monday, authorised the US delegation to relax its position.

If signed, the accord would wrap up two years of negotiations to strengthen the Climate Change Treaty by setting legally binding limits on 34 industrial nations' emissions of such greenhouse gases as carbon dioxide and methane.

All for nothing?

Even if the two sides do reach an agreement, the US Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott, said on Tuesday that the treaty had only "bleak prospects" of ratification.

"I have made clear to the president personally that the Senate will not ratify a flawed Climate Change Treaty," Mr Lott said in a letter to Republican Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska who is in Kyoto leading a US observer group.

The Mississippi Republican reiterated his opposition to a treaty provision that he said would "empower international bureaucrats to impose financial obligations on the United States." He said concerns of US business and labour are not being addressed in the treaty negotiations.
 

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