U.N. climate talks agree blueprint for action

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Delegates at the 130-nation talks stood and applauded after chairman Rajendra Pachauri brought down the gavel on the Nov. 12-17 meeting in Valencia, Spain, that wraps up six years of work on the most authoritative review of climate science.

Government delegates and scientists agreed a summary of some 20 pages late on Friday about the mounting risk of climate change - ranging from extinctions to rising sea levels - and condensing 3,000 pages of science published earlier this year.

"This is the strongest report yet by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) but says that there is still time to act," said Bill Hare, an Australian climate scientist who was among the authors.

The document will put pressure on environment ministers who will meet next month in Bali, Indonesia, to do more to combat warming. Many countries hope that Bali will agree a two-year roadmap to negotiate a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the main U.N. plan for fighting warming until 2012.

"The report sends a very strong signal to Bali," said Hans Verolme, director of the WWF conservation group's climate change programme. "Now it's up to the politicians."

Kyoto only sets binding goals for cutting greenhouse gases for 36 industrial nations. The United States and developing nations led by China, the two main emitters of greenhouse gases, are outside Kyoto.

BAN KI-MOON

The IPCC report will be formally presented on Saturday by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Valencia.

The summary says human activity is "very likely" to be the cause of rising temperatures and that deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, are needed to avert ever more heatwaves, melting glaciers, extinctions and rising sea levels.

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