UN climate pact unlikely under Bush, analysts say

NAIROBI -- UN climate talks last week kept a plan for fighting global warming on track for expansion beyond 2012, but breakthroughs appeared unlikely before President Bush steps down, specialists said yesterday.

"Everyone is waiting for the United States," said Paal Prestrud, head of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

The United States is the biggest source of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, and Bush's decision to reject caps under the UN's Kyoto Protocol discourages involvement by big- polluting outsiders such as China and India.

After two weeks of talks, about 70 environment ministers in Nairobi agreed on Friday to a 2008 review of Kyoto as a possible prelude to deeper emission cuts by rich nations beyond 2012 and steps by developing countries to brake emissions. Bush is scheduled to leave office in 2009.

They also agreed to modest plans to help Africa adapt to the feared effects of climate change such as drought, storms, disease, and rising seas. Ministers agreed to promote green technologies, such as wind or solar power, in the poorest continent.

Many, however, said work on extending Kyoto was too sluggish. Investors in such facilities as coal-burning power plants need years to plan. Kyoto obliges 35 rich nations to cut emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012.

" Global emissions will have to be halved by mid-century if we are to have a chance of keeping climate change within tolerable limits," said the European commissioner, Stavros Dimas.

Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001, saying caps would cost jobs and the plan wrongly omitted targets for poor countries. "The president is very committed to the policy and strategy which he has set forth," said Paula Dobriansky, an undersecretary of state.