The Chairman of the Conference on Climate Change, in Kyoto has released a statement which he hopes will form the basis of an agreement. Under the proposal, countries will reduce their global emissions of three greenhouse gases by a total of 5%. From Kyoto, Juliet Hindell reports:

It was a document that everyone had waited all day to see. The Chairman of the Conference, Ambassador Raoul Estrada of Argentina, set out a global target of a 5% cut to emissions of three greenhouse gases.

Under the proposal individual countries would have to make different reductions to achieve the target. The European Union would have to cut emissions by 8%, Japan by 4.5% and the United States by 5%.

Australia, on the other hand, would be allowed to increase emissions by 5%. By releasing the proposal, the Ambassador is hoping to force the pace of negotiations.

It's designed to be the basis of a final agreement, but there's no guarantee that anyone will sign up to these figures. In fact, the United States has released a counter-proposal which would group the U.S., Japan, Russia, Australia, New Zealand and Canada so their emissions would be counted together.

This would allow the high emissions of some countries to be balanced out by the lower emissions of others. It's similar to the way the European Union wants to calculate its emissions as one unit.