A grouping of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters yesterday backed UN-led efforts to forge a global pact to fight climate change but disagreed on a sectoral approach to curb emissions from industry.

G-20 nations ranging from top carbon emitters the United States to big developing economies China, Brazil, Indonesia and South Africa held three days of talks near Tokyo to discuss ways to tackle rapidly rising emissions.

"It's not so much these two groups are at loggerheads with each other, they are also thinking of how they can cooperate collectively," Halldor Thorgeirsson of the UN Climate Change Secretariat said.

The developing world is demanding rich states do more to curb their own emissions and help poorer countries pay for clean technology.

Both sides managed to bridge differences in Bali last December to launch two years of talks on a pact that binds all nations to emissions curbs to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"The whole debate on climate change is moving away from just being an issue of targets to being an issue of how to reduce emissions," said Thorgeirsson, who was pleased with the G-20 talks that were billed as a dialogue, not a negotiation.

"This is a very good sign that the good spirit of Bali will prevail in Bangkok as well," he said, referring to the March 31-April 4 meeting in the Thai capital, the first UN-led climate meeting of nations that backed the "Bali roadmap".

But some G-20 members and delegates voiced concern over Japan's proposal for sectoral caps for polluting industries.

Japan wants top greenhouse gas emitting nations to assign near-term emissions targets for each industrial sector which, added up, would then form a national target.

But it was unclear if this target was mandatory or voluntary and developing nations said the scheme needed to take into account their individual circumstances.

Indonesia called for more funding and the transfer of clean energy technology. Otherwise a sectoral approach would not work.

The talks in Chiba, near Tokyo, also sparked a row over big developing nations being labeled "major emitters", a term US officials used at the gathering.

South Africa, Indonesia, India and Brazil told the meeting they objected to the label since on a per-capita basis, their carbon emissions were a fraction of the roughly 24 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent produced by the average American.

Developing nations also called for more clarity on the funding and management of schemes to pay for clean energy technology projects in their countries.

(China Daily March 17, 2008)