Delegates at climate talks in Bali tried to break a deadlock on Thursday over U.S.-led opposition to tough guidelines for rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

The non-binding range of 25-40 percent cuts from 1990 levels by 2020 remains in draft text but the United States, Canada, Australia and others are opposed to these numbers, angering developing nations, whose own emissions are rising rapidly.

"Most countries want a binding range for the rich nations," said a developing nation delegate on Thursday.

About 190 nations are meeting in Bali for Dec 3-14 talks to try to launch negotiations on a pact to succeed the current Kyoto Protocol, whose first phase ends in 2012.

Developing nations want rich countries to do more to cut their own emissions and say any removal of emission cuts guidelines from the final text would be a sign of bad faith.

Kyoto binds 37 industrialized nations to curb their emissions between 2008 and 2012. Poor nations are exempt from curbs.

The United Nations wants all nations to agree on a successor to Kyoto by late 2009 to give governments time to ratify the new deal and to give markets clear guidelines on how to make investments in clean energy technology.

The United States says having guidelines would prejudge the outcome of the talks and the 25-40 percent range is based on relatively little scientific study.

Not happy

Chinese delegates said on Wednesday they were disappointed by a lack of progress at the talks and said emissions targets were exactly what was needed to prove rich nations were committed to fight global warming.

China also wants talks on a new global compact to be extended.

"The Chinese want talks to drag on into 2010 to give time for a new American president to come on board. Not many other countries think that's a good idea," one developing nation delegate said.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg told delegates the objective must be that global temperatures rise no more than 2 degrees Celsius and that global emissions peak no later than 2015.

"Future generations will judge us on our actions."

"The response from Bali must be we have the will, we have the means and we have the determination to act."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates on Wednesday the time to act was now to avoid greater extremes of drought and floods, rising seas, spread of disease and mass migration of climate refugees.

In the Arctic, ice at the North Pole melted at a record rate in the summer of 2007, the latest sign that climate change has accelerated in recent years, climate scientists said on Wednesday.

"In 2007, we had off-the-charts warming," Michael Steele, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, said at the 2007 meeting of the American Geophysical Union, where 15,000 researchers have gathered to discuss earthquakes, water resources, and climate change.

PHOTO CAPTION 

Environmental activists dress up as snails as they demonstrate at the UN Climate Change Conference in Nusa Dua, Indonesia. [AFP]

Reuters