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United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 -
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China, Brazil, South Africa and India want a global climate treaty wrapped up by June 2010, according to a joint draft document prepared for the Copenhagen climate summit which opened on Tuesday (NZT).
Some 192 countries gathered in the Danish capital for the world's biggest climate conference, meant to agree the outline of a new climate treaty.
World leaders will attend the closing on Dec 18.
Decisions by leaders to join the Copenhagen talks have buoyed the Dec 7-18 meeting but time has run out to agree a full legal treaty, intended for next year. Copenhagen will instead merely agree a "politically binding" text.
The four major emerging economies responsible for 30% of global carbon emissions targeted June to end talks on a legal text. Some other countries have suggested an end-2010 deadline.
"The (negotiating) group shall complete its work by June 2010 and present the outcome of its work to the conference ... at the resumed session" of the Copenhagen meeting, the draft obtained by Reuters said.
The draft recognised a scientific target to limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and rejected the notion of border tariffs which added a surcharge on imports from high-polluting nations.
"Parties shall not resort to any form of unilateral measures, including fiscal and non-fiscal border measures, against goods and services," it said.
The draft did not specify how far rich countries should cut greenhouse gases by 2020, a key target year, nor how much money the four wanted from the industrialised world to help them prepare for climate change and cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. China and India have called on rich countries to cut their emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.
When asked whether developing nations had dropped that demand, India's special envoy on climate change Shyam Saran in Copenhagen told Reuters:
"The reason is that there are some countries in the G77 and China (the larger group of developing nations) who want a higher percentage.
"You have the Alliance of Small Island States who say that the minimum should be 45%, not just 40%. So this is a matter for further discussion."
The draft text called for a global climate fund to help developing countries prepare for and mitigate against climate change, to be administered by the Global Environment Facility.
