Climate talks near end amid row

If global temperatures rise, billions will face water shortages

World climate talks in Bali have gone into their scheduled last day amid fierce disagreement over targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

EU ministers have warned they will boycott a US-led climate summit next month unless the Bush administration backs firm targets for emissions cuts.

The US favours allowing governments to set voluntary targets.

Indonesia is reported to be trying to broker a compromise that would remove firm targets from the final text.

Former US vice-president Al Gore has criticised the US approach.

He won loud applause from delegates as he said: "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali."

'Don't give up'

But the Nobel Peace Prize laureate also urged delegates not to give up.

"You can decide to move forward and do the difficult work that needs to be done," he said.

If they get this text through the conference then the next treaty won't be worth the paper it's written on John Sauven, Greenpeace

Officials say agreement has been reached on many issues. Disagreement centres on pollution by industrialised countries.

On one side are the European Union states and their allies.

They want industrialised countries to agree to cuts of 25%-40% in greenhouse gas emissions - which mainly come from burning fossil fuels - from 1990 levels by 2020. The target would not apply to developing countries.

"We continue to insist on including a reference to an indicative emissions reduction range for developed countries for 2020," the EU's Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said in a statement.

On the other side are the US, Canada and Japan. The US in particular, which has not ratified the Kyoto agreement, says any numerical agreement would prejudge the outcome of future talks.

The environmental group Greenpeace has accused the US of trying to kill off the international fight against climate change.

"If they get this text through the conference then the next treaty won't be worth the paper it's written on because it will give a free pass to any nation that wants to keep polluting," Greenpeace's UK executive director John Sauven told the BBC.

Meaningless talks

The US is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and most parties recognise that climate change talks without it would be meaningless.

In September the US hosted the inaugural summit of the "major economies" or "big emitters" group, which brings together 16 of the leading greenhouse gas producing countries.

The US is due to host a second summit next month in Honolulu.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin, reporting from Bali, says the European threat to boycott the conference pushes President Bush into a corner.

Either he agrees to negotiate big cuts, or he has to explain to an increasingly concerned American public why Europe is boycotting a meeting which the president himself has invented and championed, our correspondent says.

Oceans are 'soaking up less CO2'

The amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world's oceans has reduced, scientists have said.

University of East Anglia researchers gauged CO2 absorption through more than 90,000 measurements from merchant ships equipped with automatic instruments.

Results of their 10-year study in the North Atlantic show CO2 uptake halved between the mid-90s and 2000 to 2005.

Scientists believe global warming might get worse if the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas.

Researchers said the findings, published in a paper for the Journal of Geophysical Research, were surprising and worrying because there were grounds for believing that, in time, the ocean might become saturated with our emissions.

'Saturated' ocean

BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin said: "The researchers don't know if the change is due to climate change or to natural variations.

"But they say it is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become 'saturated' with our emissions - unable to soak up any more."

He said that would "leave all our emissions to warm the atmosphere".

Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, only half of it stays there; the rest goes into carbon sinks.

There are two major natural carbon sinks: the oceans and the land "biosphere". They are equivalent in size, each absorbing a quarter of all CO2 emissions.

Ten 'most polluted places' named

A list of the world's most polluted places has been published by a US-based independent environmental group.

The Blacksmith Institute's top 10 towns and cities included sites in ex-Soviet republics, Russia, China and India. Peru and Zambia were also listed.
The report said an estimated 12 million people were affected by the severe pollution, which was mainly caused by chemical, metal and mining industries.
Chronic illness and premature deaths were listed as possible side-effects.
The annual review, which debuted in 2006, is listed alphabetically, and the sites are unranked "given the wide range of location sizes, populations and pollution dynamics".

WORST POLLUTED
Sumgayit, Azerbaijan; Potentially 275,000 affected
Linfen, China; Potentially 3m affected
Tianying, China; Potentially 140,000 affected
Sukinda, India; Potentially 2.6m affected
Vapi, India; Potentially 71,000 affected
La Oroya, Peru; Potentially 35,000 affected
Dzerzhinsk, Russia; Potentially 300,000 affected
Norilsk, Russia; Potentially 134,000 affected
Chernobyl, Ukraine; Potentially 5.5m affected
Kabwe, Zambia; Potentially 255,000 affected
Data: Blacksmith Institute

Among the new sites listed in 2007 were Tianying in China, where potentially 140,000 people were at risk from lead poisoning from a massive lead production base there.
The report also said that in the Indian town of Sukinda there were 12 mines operating without environmental controls, leaching dangerous chemicals into water supplies.
Sumgayit in Azerbaijan was also included in the report, which said the former Soviet industrial base was polluting the area with industrial chemicals and heavy metals.
According to the report, cancer rates in Sumgayit were as much as 51% higher than the national average and that genetic mutations and birth defects were commonplace.
The Blacksmith Institute's director, Richard Fuller, said: "The fact of the matter is that children are sick and dying in these polluted places, and it's not rocket science to fix them.
"This year, there has been more focus on pollution in the media, but there has been little action in terms of new funding or programmes. We all need to step up to the plate and get moving," he said.