Rich nations must commit to more ambitious targets for slashing greenhouse gases by 2020 to help stave off the ravages of climate change, the UN's top climate official said yesterday.

At the start of the United Nations climate talks here 12 days ago, the Obama administration

U.S. negotiators tried to dampen expectations on Wednesday of rapid progress on climate change after President Barack Obama vowed new U.S. leadership, on the closing day of U.N. talks in Bonn.

The 11-day meeting was the latest in a series meant to help prepare a deal to be sealed in Copenhagen in December to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

United Nations climate talks threaten Saudi Arabia's economic survival and the kingdom wants support for any shift from fossil fuels to other energy sources such as solar power, its lead climate negotiator said.

Contrasting interests of different countries are challenging faltering climate talks, meant to forge by December a new global deal in Copenhagen to curb man-made climate change.

Global warming is likely to overshoot a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise seen by the European Union and many developing nations as a trigger for

Global warming is likely to overshoot a 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) rise seen by the European Union and many developing nations as a trigger for "dangerous" change, a Reuters poll of scientists showed on Tuesday.

India urged rich nations against applying a carbon tariff on steel and other imports, on the sidelines of UN climate talks in Bonn on Tuesday.

Both U.S. and European Union policymakers have considered penalising imports of products such as steel and cement, whose manufacture generates a lot of carbon emissions, from countries with softer climate policies.

It will be hard work getting rich nations to agree cuts in greenhouse gases that are deep enough to satisfy the demands of developing countries at climate talks, UN's climate chief told Reuters on Monday.

Some 175 nations are meeting this week in Bonn in one of a series of UN-led meetings meant to forge a deal in Copenhagen in December to replace or extend the Kyoto Protocol.

An ice bridge which had apparently held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place during recorded history shattered on Saturday and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist said.

Small island states have sharpened their calls for the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, saying low-lying atolls risk being washed off the map by rising ocean levels.

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