(Adds details)
* U.N. climate talks agree deal on global warming
* Vulnerable states say accords leave them vulnerable
* Number of key issues deferred until 2012
By Nina Chestney and Jon Herskovitz
DURBAN, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Countries from around the
globe agreed on Sunday to forge a new deal forcing all the
biggest polluters for the first time to limit greenhouse gas
emissions, but critics said the plan was too timid to slow
global warming.
A package of accords agreed after marathon U.N. talks in
South Africa extended the 1997 Kyoto Protocol – the only global
pact enforcing carbon cuts – allowing five more years to
finalise a wider pact which has so far eluded negotiators.
Kyoto’s first phase – due to expire at the end of next year
but now extended until 2017 – imposed limits only on developed
countries, not emerging giants like China and India. The United
States never ratified it.
Those three countries and the EU held a last-ditch huddle in
the conference centre before finally agreeing to wording that
commits them to a pact with legal force, although exactly what
form it will take was left vague.
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