Compromise deal could break climate change deadlock

Hopes rose today of an agreement on climate change targets after two weeks of deadlock between the US and Europe.

The European Union wants to reduce global-warming emissions from 25-40 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. America had been fighting the move.

The outcome would help determine how high the planet's temperatures would rise for decades.

In the final day of the two-week UN conference in Bali, delegates sparred over the wording of a final document until the early hours.

Trying to break the deadlock, conference president, Indonesia's environment minister Rachmat Witoelar, proposed revising the language, dropping the exact 25-40 per cent target but still reaffirming that emissions should be reduced by at least half by 2050.