All nations must do more to fight climate change, and rich countries must make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impacts, a draft proposal at United Nations talks in Bali said today.
The four-page draft, written by delegates from Indonesia, Australia and South Africa as an unofficial guide for delegates from 190 nations at the talks, said developing nations should at least brake rising emissions as part of a new pact.
An activist carrying black balloons representing CO2 emission demonstrates outside the venue of the Bali talks
It said there was "unequivocal scientific evidence" that "preventing the worst impacts of climate change will require (developed nations) to reduce emissions in a range of 25 to 40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020."
The draft is the first outline of the possible goals of talks on a new global deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which binds just 36 developed nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
"Current efforts ... will not deliver the required emissions reductions," according to the text, which lays out a plan for averting ever more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas. "The challenge of climate change calls for effective participation by all countries."
The United States is outside the Kyoto pact and developing nations led by China and India have no 2012 goals for limiting emissions.
Echoing conclusions this year by the UN climate panel, it said global emissions of greenhouse gases would have to "peak in the next 10 to 15 years and be reduced to very low levels, well below half of levels in 2000 by 2050."
The draft lays out three options for how to proceed after Bali - ranging from non-binding talks over the next two years to a deadline for adopting a new global pact at a UN meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009.
Rich nations should consider ways to step up efforts to curb emissions of greenhouse gases by setting "quantified national emission objectives", the draft says. Poor countries should take "national mitigation actions ... that limit the growth of, or reduce, emissions," it says.
Delegates will report back on Monday with reactions.
Earlier, an alliance of 43 small island states urged even tougher action to fight climate change, saying they risked being washed off the map by rising seas.