(Reuters) - Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Durban, South Africa, reached a deal that for the first time could bring all major emitters into international efforts to limit global warming, but which environmentalists said did not go far enough.
Following is reaction from key players and observers.
UNITED STATES CLIMATE ENVOY TODD STERN
"In the end, it ended up quite well. The (Durban platform) is the piece that was the matching piece with the Kyoto Protocol. We got the kind of symmetry that we had been focused on since the beginning of the Obama administration. This had all the elements that we were looking for."
BRAZIL AMBASSADOR LUIZ ALBERTO FIGUEREIDO
"I am relieved we have what we came here to get. We have a robust outcome, an excellent text about a new phase in the international fight against climate change. It clearly points to action."
SELWIN HART, CHIEF NEGOTIATOR ON FINANCE FOR SMALL ISLAND
STATES
"I would have wanted to get more, but at least we have something to work with. All is not lost yet."
ALDEN MEYER, UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS
"There is some hard bargaining ahead to get a treaty by 2015. It will be particularly tough for the U.S., which isn't doing its fair share of emissions cuts and scaling up finance. The politics on that aren't very promising given two members of the Republican party are in complete denial."
JENNIFER HAVERKAMP, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND
"The challenge is that we begin the talks from the lowest common denominator of every party's aspirations. For this effort to be successful, countries need to be ambitious in their commitments and to refuse to use these negotiations as just another stalling tool."
MICHAEL JACOBS, VISITING PROFESSOR ON CLIMATE CHANGE AT THE
LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS
"It's rather remarkable. It's the first time that developing countries have committed to be bound by a legal, international instrument in this way.
"It's the first time that developing countries have acknowledged they could be committing to taking action on their emissions by international law.
"It's a genuine breakthrough."
(Reporting by Nina Chestney, Agnieszka Flak, Jon Herskovitz, Barbara Lewis)
