U.N. climate talks seek quicker pace

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - More than 150 nations meet in Ghana from Thursday trying to speed up sluggish talks on a new climate treaty and plug big gaps in a "vision" of leading industrial nations of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The August 21-27 meeting of 1,000 delegates will also consider new ways to combat global warming such as slowing tropical deforestation -- U.N. studies say burning of trees accounts for about 20 percent of greenhouse gases from human activities.

"While progress has been made, there is no doubt that we need to move forward quickly," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said in a statement.

The Accra meeting will be the third since governments agreed last year to negotiate a new climate treaty by the end of 2009 to avert threats such as heatwaves, rising sea levels, disruption of monsoons, desertification and flooding.

Slowing economic growth in many nations, the collapse of world trade talks in July and uncertainties about U.S. policy after President George W. Bush leaves office in January 2009 means that many countries are wary of showing their hands.

"The political process has suffered major delays and is far from where it should be," the WWF conservation group said.

The talks will be a first chance to ease tensions between rich and poor nations after leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations agreed at a summit in Japan last month on a "vision" of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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