U.S. says rich nations likely to miss carbon targets

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Rich nations as a group are unlikely to reach the deep 2020 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions urged by developing nations as part of a new U.N. climate treaty, the top U.S. climate envoy said on Friday.

China, India and other developing nations say the rich must do most to fight global warming to encourage developing countries to sign up for more action as part of a new U.N. climate pact due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

"We...have been engaged in conversations with our European friends about how you might express an aggregate kind of goal," U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern said in a telephone briefing before a round of U.N. talks in Bonn from June 1-12.

"I don't think you are going to see a 25-to-40 percent aggregate number" for cuts by rich nations below 1990 levels by 2020, he said, adding: "It's possible when you add everything up that you won't be that far away from it."

In 2007, the U.N.'s Climate Panel outlined cuts by developed nations of between 25 and 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 as a scenario to avoid the worst of climate changes such as floods, droughts, more powerful storms and rising ocean levels.

France suggested this week that developed nations as a group should work out a way to guarantee overall cuts of 25-40 percent. Washington says such a goal is out of reach for its domestic emissions.

INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

But China, India and others say the rich have benefited from use of fossil fuels since the industrial revolution and should cut by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. They say the poor still need to use more energy to end poverty.