By Richard Cowan and Alister Doyle
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - China on Wednesday demanded deeper carbon cuts by the United States, and a draft text at U.N. climate talks suggested a new lease of life for the existing Kyoto Protocol despite opposition from many developed nations.
The third day of the December 7-18 Copenhagen conference, meant to agree the outline of a broad successor to Kyoto, exposed deep differences on emissions cuts, legal details and how to raise billions of dollars in climate aid.
The world's top two emitters, China and the United States, said they were committed to a deal. Top U.S. aides vowed "robust" engagement with world leaders but said the United States did not owe the world reparations for centuries of carbon pollution.
"I do hope that President (Barack) Obama can bring a concrete contribution to Copenhagen," Beijing's top climate envoy Xie Zhenhua told Reuters, saying he wanted more than the current offer of a 3 percent cut by 2020 on 1990 levels.
Success at Copenhagen, with a closing summit of 110 world leaders on December 17-18, will hinge largely on agreement between the United States and China which together emit 40 percent of global carbon dioxide.
"If the demands of developing countries can be satisfied, I think we can discuss an emissions target" to halve global emissions by 2050, Xie said.
Developed nations want the world to agree a global halving of emissions to demonstrate that all are willing to help avoid droughts, floods and rising seas. Many developing nations say rich nations must first commit to tougher carbon cuts by 2020.
An enhanced version of the U.N. Kyoto Protocol will be part of the fight against global warming until 2020, according to a draft text by Denmark, hosting the talks in Copenhagen.
"Parties to the Kyoto Protocol...decide that further commitments for developed countries should take the form of quantified (greenhouse gas) emission limitation and reduction objectives," said the text, obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.
European negotiators favour merging Kyoto into a single new treaty that would set curbs on emissions by all nations. They argue that would be the best way to enable the United States -- the only developed nation outside Kyoto -- to join in."
"We're not going to become part of the Kyoto Protocol, so that's not on the table," said Obama's special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern.
NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE
Long-standing north-south rifts remained on emissions cuts and climate finance.
Xie, the deputy chairman of the powerful economic planning superministry, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said a U.N. proposal for $10 billion (6 billion pounds) per year financial aid for poorer nations from 2010-2012 was "not enough."
In the longer term, China wants developed countries to provide assistance worth 1 to 1.5 percent of their national income, he added.
Xie estimated 1 percent of GDP at about $300 billion, double the $150 billion which the European Union has suggested in annual climate funds for developing countries by 2020.
Stern assured reporters that the United States would contribute to a rich-country fund aimed at helping developing nations deal with climate change problems.
He warned, however, that China, with its booming economy and large reserves of U.S. dollars, would not be a recipient of financial aid from Washington. And he said Washington would not pay reparations for causing a share of global warming.
"We absolutely recognise our historic role in putting emissions in the atmosphere, up there, but the sense of guilt or culpability or reparations, I just categorically reject that," Stern said in response to a reporter's question.
Xie initially told Reuters rich countries should make emissions cuts of 25-40 percent versus 1990 levels by 2020, but clarified later that China was sticking to its past insistence of cuts of "at least 40 percent."
Developed countries have so far offered cuts of about 14-18 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.
Stern countered that the "core part of this negotiation is significant action by the major developing countries, there's no question."
(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan, David Fogarty, Emma Graham-Harrison, John Acher and Sunanda Creagh in Copenhagen; Writing by Gerard Wynn; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
