Top UN Official - Climate Talks Going Nowhere Fast - Should Be Viewed As "Warning Sign" - AFP

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SINGAPORE (AFP) — Governments negotiating a new climate change treaty, due next year, remain far apart on many issues, and this should be a "warning sign" that the world is facing trouble, a top UN environmental official said Tuesday. Talks in Bangkok earlier this month to thrash out firm commitments to battling global warming made little ground and this does not bode well for the 2009 meeting, Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told reporters.

The Bangkok talks were a follow-up to a UN-brokered global gathering in the Indonesian resort island of Bali in December aimed at drawing up a plan for an ambitious treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

"Two weeks ago in Bangkok, governments met again to once again discuss the Bali road map... I personally believe that that event was a warning sign," Steiner told delegates at the Business for the Environment conference in Singapore.

At the Bangkok talks, countries simply reiterated their positions on cutting harmful greenhouse gas emissions, he said, describing this as "at best disconcerting, and worse, a sign that we are in trouble". Rich and poor nations were at loggerheads, with developing countries especially suspicious of a Japanese-led proposal on industry standards and demanding greater aid to help them cope with the ravages of climate change.

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