Poorer nations object to industry greenhouse curbs

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent

PARIS (Reuters) - Developing nations objected on Wednesday to possible curbs on greenhouse gases produced by industries such as steel or cement, telling U.S.-led climate talks that too strict standards could throttle their companies.

Other countries expressed worries that such targets, championed by Japan as a possible element of a planned new U.N. climate treaty beyond 2012, should only be a complement to big cuts in emissions of gases led by industrial nations.

Seventeen nations, the European Commission and the United Nations will meet in Paris on Thursday and Friday for a third round of a U.S.-led series of meetings to work out ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

On Wednesday, India led objections at a preliminary workshop reviewing whether industries could take on sectoral goals to help curb more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas predicted by the U.N. Climate Panel.

Plans by rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases "should not be diluted by a sectoral approach," R. Chidambaram, chief scientific adviser to India's government.

He said that there were some Indian industries that were among the cleanest in the world but others with far higher energy use. "You cannot develop a global policy that will throttle these guys," he said.

Brazil also told the meeting that the rich nations should focus primarily on cutting their own emissions.

The Paris talks are the third in a series trying to end criticism that President George W. Bush is doing too little to fight climate change compared to other industrial allies who have agreed to cut emissions by at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12 under the Kyoto Protocol.