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Bali climate talks head into overtime

The US and the EU stepped back from confrontation yesterday as global talks on climate change headed into extra time amid hopes they could still reach a compromise.

US and EU officials both voiced optimism that the 12-day talks would yield an agreement as delegates braced for a potentially long night over how much commitment to show in reining in greenhouse gases.

BAN KI-MOON

Adding to pressure for a deal, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would return today to the conference on the Indonesian island of Bali to "engage myself in continuing further negotiations."

"Climate change is an issue that affects the future of all humanity," said Ban, who had been expected to return straight to Jakarta from a visit to East Timor.

Still, he said he hoped delegates would come to an agreement by themselves later yesterday.

UN climate chief Yvo de Boer had urged the conference to wrap up work by noon yesterday, but said he was still hopeful even after the talks passed their official deadline of 6pm.

"It's very difficult to say at this moment how long exactly it's going to take," he said. "There will still be work that needs doing."

But the mood was brighter and the horse-trading more serious compared with Thursday, when the negotiations were gridlocked by accusations and sourness, delegates said.

I am "always optimistic. I think we will have an agreement," Harlan Watson, the US senior climate negotiator, said on the sidelines of the meeting.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said: "The climate in the talks about climate has changed a bit."

The biggest stumbling block in Bali has been over whether the text should include figures indicating how far industrialized countries are willing to cut emissions to meet scientists' appeals for drastic, early reductions.

The figures sketched are cuts of 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, which the EU and emerging countries say are essential as a show of goodwill from the countries historically most to blame for warming.

But the US is against any move it suspects would haul it down the path toward Kyoto-style emissions curbs.

`ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM'

On Thursday, new Nobel peace laureate Al Gore blasted the US' tactics and urged the world to sidestep Washington, saying the next US president to be elected next year would change position.

Gore drew cheers at the talks by saying the US was the main block to negotiations in Bali.

"I am going to speak an inconvenient truth," Gore told an audience of several hundred, playing on the name of his Oscar-winning documentary. "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali."

"I don't know how you can navigate around this enormous elephant in the room, which I've been undiplomatic enough to name. But I'm asking you to do it," he said.
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