U.S. plays down hopes at climate talks

By Gerard Wynn

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - U.S. negotiators tried to dampen expectations on Wednesday of rapid progress on climate change after President Barack Obama vowed new U.S. leadership, on the closing day of U.N. talks in Bonn.

The 11-day meeting was the latest in a series meant to help prepare a deal to be sealed in Copenhagen in December to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

Obama vowed U.S. leadership on climate change on a trip to Europe last week, raising hopes.

But in Bonn, Germany, the reality was complex negotiations with fewer than nine months left to sign a global deal to curb man-made climate change, and U.S. officials stressed how hard the job was.

"The negotiations are just starting, this is a complicated subject," said the new U.S. deputy special envoy for climate change, Jonathan Pershing.

"The simple headline that temperatures are rising captures the public imagination as it ought, but the difficulties, complexities, the nuance of what you do about it requires a great deal of time, energy and sophistication."

"Finding common ground will take some time."

Developing nations complained that the Bonn talks delivered neither an indication of emissions targets for rich countries nor pledges to fund emissions cuts in the South, as some had hoped.