U.N. says greenhouse gas cuts encouraging

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Rich nations have outlined "encouraging" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions so far but the United States and others may be able to make tougher curbs, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said on Tuesday.

"One of the main points from now on is to see how ... far the level of ambition can be increased," Yvo de Boer told Reuters, speaking of negotiations on a new U.N. pact to fight global warming due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

He said the marathon negotiations will get a spur from May 18, by when a first draft negotiating text is due to be published. The text will sum up submissions from governments in recent weeks.

He welcomed offers by developed nations in recent weeks, even though they are short of reductions of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 outlined by a U.N. panel of scientists to avoid the worst of global warming.

"Given that a Copenhagen agreement is not yet in sight I think we have an encouraging (set) of numbers on the table from industrialized countries," he said in a telephone interview.

Among reasons, "there are countries that have purely looked at potential domestic emission reduction commitments and have not included offsets or action abroad, such as the United States," he said. Action abroad could enable deeper reductions.

Under the U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol, for instance, developed countries can get credit for investing in cleaner technologies such as hydropower, solar panels or wind turbines that cut emissions in developing nations.

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