World's big polluters note change in U.S. climate stance

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

HONOLULU (Reuters) - The world's biggest greenhouse polluters applauded the United States at climate change talks on Thursday, but some urged Washington to take the next step by setting goals to reduce its emissions of climate-warming carbon.

The United States, alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, noted that the two-day Hawaii meeting addressed the toughest areas of disagreement among the countries that use 80 percent of the planet's energy.

Brice Lalonde, the French ambassador for climate change, noted a shift in the U.S. position, which he said had previously been "a bit lagging" in failing to set goals to reduce its overall emissions of greenhouse gases.

"And now we are seeing that the United States is discussing the matter," Lalonde said at a news briefing. "We welcome this move. Of course we are waiting for the next step, which would be that the United States will also have a goal in reducing its greenhouse gases, joining in that way all developed countries."

The U.S.-hosted meeting in Honolulu gathered delegates from 17 so-called major economies - the Group of Eight industrialized nations plus fast-developing China and India along with Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea and the European Union - to work together to spur U.N. negotiations on climate change.

The goal is to craft an international agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. To make sure the new agreement is ready in time, a new pact must be ready by 2009.

The United States, by most counts the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, rejects Kyoto on the ground that it unfairly exempts China and India and says any new agreement must include all countries.

The first meeting of major economies, convened in Washington in September, found some delegates complaining that the United States was isolated for its stand against Kyoto and that the U.S.-led process had the potential to distract from rather than contribute to the U.N. negotiations.