EU asks developing nations to reduce greenhouse gases

The draft report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change being debated in Bangkok says the world must quickly embrace energy efficiency and shift away from fossil fuels to help keep the temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

But the United States and China are expected to attempt to insert language playing down the conclusion that quick action can limit the catastrophic effects of global warming, according to comments each country submitted before the meeting. The two countries also have raised doubts that immediate moves could stabilize greenhouse gas levels.

Two previous IPCC reports this year painted a dire picture of a future in which unabated greenhouse gas emissions could drive global temperatures up as much as 6 degrees Celsius, or 11 degrees Fahrenheit, by 2100. Even a rise of 2 degrees Celsius could subject up to two billion people to water shortages by 2050, and threaten extinction for 20 percent to 30 percent of the world's species, the IPCC said.

Tom van Ierland, a climate change specialist with the European Union, said it supported a goal of limiting temperature change to 2 degrees Celsius but that that could not be done without the cooperation of developing countries.

He said the EU was providing tens of millions of dollars in funding for energy efficiency projects in developing countries and supported policies "they themselves can implement to increase their energy efficiency and energy security."

"We need to ensure that in coming years the growth of emissions in developing countries is reduced and eventually capped to be in line with our 2 degree objective," he told reporters.

Without singling out any one country, van Ierland also called on governments to stop using the inaction of some of the world's leading polluters as a reason not pursuing their own policies to cut greenhouse gases.

China, the world's second biggest emitter, has said that richer countries are responsible for the accumulated greenhouse emissions and should take the lead in cleaning up the problem.

The United States and Australia have refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations treaty on climate change, partly over objections that China and India are not held to carbon pollution reduction targets.

"We hope that kind of discussion can subside because we don't think it's the right one," van Ierland said of the waiting game.

A recently released study showed that the strict traffic controls that Beijing imposed during a summit meeting with African leaders last year produced a significant drop in pollution, a positive sign for plans for the 2008 Olympics, The Associated Press reported from Beijing.

Researchers from Harvard University and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute studied satellite data and found that levels of NOx, a class of nitrogen oxides produced during combustion that are thought to contribute to global warming, fell 40 percent from usual levels during the November meeting.

Researchers said they had expected that Beijing would need to cut traffic by 50 percent to see a 40 percent reduction, but instead the city achieved that by taking an estimated 30 percent of vehicles off the roadways. The city authorities got an estimated 800,000 of Beijing's 2.8 million vehicles off the road.