UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer (r) look on as the president of the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties Rachmat Witoelar speaks in the opening session of UN Climate Change Conference in Nusa Dua, on Bali Island, Indonesia on Monday.

NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Dec. 3--A major UN-sponsored climate change conference opened on Indonesia’s Bali Monday, tasked with crafting a road map for negotiations leading to a new pact for addressing global warming.
The 11-day conference, held under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and attended by more than 180 nations, comes as evidence mounts of the havoc rising sea levels and extreme weather patterns are set to wreak on world ecosystems and humankind, AFP reported.
Under the new pact, industrialized countries will be pressed to massively reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases from the end of 2012, when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Indonesia’s environment minister and the new president of the convention, Rachmat Witoelar, told the opening summit session that there was a building momentum for an agreement to be hammered out here.
“In my consultations, I’ve heard widespread support from governments on launching a process under the convention to conduct negotiations on the future climate regime, and for agreeing on an agenda for these negotiations,“ he said.
Meanwhile, the UN climate chief said that any agreement at a United Nations climate change conference starting Monday in Indonesia would not make sense without the participation of the United States, the world’s top greenhouse gas emitter.
Yvo de Boer, general secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said that the US role “would be critical“ in the discussions, and that delegates must come up with a roadmap that Washington embraces.
“To design a long-term response to climate change that does not include the world’s largest emitter and the world’s largest economy just would not make any sense,“ de Boer told reporters, AP wrote.
The US said ahead of the Bali talks that it was eager to launch negotiations--but it has been among industrialized nations leading a campaign against mandatory emission cuts.
But now the US may find itself isolated at the conference, since Australian Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, whose party swept to power in general elections just one week ago, ratified the Kyoto Protocol on climate change on Monday.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Dec. 3--Oil-rich countries in Africa must resist the temptation to splurge their revenue from black gold if they want to avoid a hangover when supplies run dry, experts said at a conference in South Africa.
Oil has all too often proved a curse to Africa, greasing the palms of foreign firms and corrupt leaders, and while many countries are now improving the way they manage the resource, they also need to diversify their economies before oil runs out, AFP reported.
“Oil wealth is a mild toxin, much like alcohol. If you don’t have a strong constitution it tends to make you unstable,“ said Diarmid O’Sullivan of London-based Global Witness’ oil campaign at a two-day conference held by the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).
O’Sullivan said countries such as Angola, now the fastest growing economy in Africa off the back of its oil supplies, had proven reserves for less than 20 years.
“If that gets wasted through corruption and poor governance, that opportunity is not going to come around again. When the oil is gone, it’s gone,“ he said.
Analysts at the conference said that the living conditions in many resource-rich countries were often worse than those who were not blessed with mineral wealth.
According to Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at the Chatham House, Royal Institute for International Affairs in London, Angola is the world’s leading importer of luxury vehicles such as Hummers even though some 70 percent of the population earn less than a dollar a day.
The southern African country is nearing a production of two million barrels a day, and is now one of the biggest suppliers to China, which is pumping huge investment into the country and helping to rebuild infrastructure shattered by a 27-year civil war.
However despite glaring inequalities, a previously non-existent middle class is slowly beginning to emerge between the wealthy elite and poverty-stricken.
“Angola’s budget is estimated to be $31 billion, yet its under five mortality rate is the second worst in the world today,“ said Vines.
In Equatorial Guinea, where the United Nations estimates 80 percent of national income is in the hands of five percent of the population, spending on social services like health and education have declined despite increasing oil revenues, said Vines.

LONDON, Dec. 3--The government’s approach to tackling child poverty has lost momentum and is in “urgent need“ of a major rethink, a charity has said.
A Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) report said there has been no sustained progress in the past three years. One in three UK children lives in poverty, BBC reported.
A report by the Treasury select committee fears the pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 is in doubt.
Ministers say progress has been made, but acknowledge more needs to be done.
The JRF report is also concerned that the number of children in working families that need to escape poverty is rising.
Back in 1999 the-then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, promised to halve the number of poor children in 10 years and to eradicate child poverty in 20 years. He also set a more short-term goal to reduce the number of children living in poverty to 3.1 million by April 2005.
Although the total has fallen by 600,000 since then, the government is still 500,000 short of reaching its original target.
The report’s authors say the most serious setback was an increase of 200,000 children living in poverty in 2005/6--taking the total to 3.8 million, or one in three children, if housing costs are taken into account. The JRF report acknowledges that tax credits have made a positive difference to many families. But it points out that half of all children in poverty are in working families, suggesting more needs to be done to tackle the problem of low wages.
“Progress on child poverty has stalled at a level that is only half way to the target set of two years ago,“ said the report’s co-author Peter Kenway.
The Child Poverty Action Group agrees that “more radical policies“ are necessary.
“The culture of inequality in Britain has a high cost to individual lives and the whole nation,“ added the charity’s chief executive, Kate Green.
“We cannot afford not to address the educational failure, health costs and social division that poverty brings to our communities.“
Meanwhile, the Treasury select committee report says the government’s commitment to halve child poverty by 2010 appears to be in doubt. It says this is because the government has failed to explain what it is doing to meet the target.

BEIJING, Dec. 3--China’s top leaders gathered in Beijing on Monday to determine economic policies for 2008 amid efforts to prevent the economy from overheating and to curb inflation, state media said.
“On the agenda at the conference is how to cool off booming investment and bank lending, address the soaring trade surplus, and improve the people’s livelihood,“ unnamed sources told Xinhua news agency.
The Central Economic Work Conference will bring together top decision-makers from the Communist Party and government, it reported. No time frame was given but in past years it has typically lasted three days.
China’s economy is expected to expand 11.5 percent this year, fuelled mainly by investment spending, according to Xinhua.
Analysts said a set of broad outlines would likely emerge, setting the outer limits of policies available to China’s huge bureaucracy.
“The priority certainly should be to prevent the economy from overheating,“ said Li Huiyong, a Shanghai-based economist with Shenyin Wanguo Securities. “The government should moderately tighten its fiscal and monetary policies.“
Meanwhile, Nasdaq opened an office in Beijing on Monday, a step the stock exchange said would allow it to deepen its dialogue with China’s bourses and regulators.
The Nasdaq Stock Market Inc said in a statement that having an office would also enable it to step up efforts to attract more Chinese firms to list on the exchange, Reuters reported.
Stock exchanges around the world are trying to lure Chinese firms to list with them, as investors seek to capitalize on the rapid growth of the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Nasdaq trades the shares of 52 Chinese companies with a combined market capitalization of $57 billion. It has listed 19 of them so far this year, compared with nine last year.
But Nasdaq and similar international markets such as the Growth Enterprise Board in Hong Kong face mounting competition as China redoubles its efforts to build its own Nasdaq-style board.

Trade Minister Kamal Nath

NEW DELHI, India, Dec. 3--India will not sacrifice the interests of its millions of subsistence farmers to clinch a deal in global trade talks, the country’s trade minister warned.
Trade Minister Kamal Nath’s strong stand came after the head of the World Trade Organization Pascal Lamy declared late last week he hoped to finally secure an agreement in the Doha round of international trade negotiations by the end of 2008--four years later than initially scheduled, AFP wrote.
While admitting that the United States, a key player in the talks, has “sensitivities“ in agriculture, Nath said, “We in India also have sensitivities of 650 million subsistence farmers“ and will safeguard their interests at all cost.
“We cannot have a subsidized market access which destabilizes our farmers,“ Nath told 750 delegates of the India Economic Summit organized by the World Economic Forum in the Indian capital late on Sunday.
“We cannot negotiate subsistence“ in the Doha development round--billed as a once-in-a-generation chance to raise the standard of living of millions of poor people. “We have already told the United States that if they commit on lowering their (agricultural) subsidies by just one dollar ... the deal is acceptable to us,“ he said.
“But I have not got any response so far,“ said Nath, a vociferous critic of what he says are efforts by the United States and other developed countries to perpetuate distortions in the trade talks.
The United States says it has made concessions on its trade-distorting farm subsidies and that tougher demands could torpedo a deal but developing nations say the US moves are not enough.
Developing and emerging nations are seeking cuts in farm subsidies and on import tariffs for farm produce, while rich countries want more access to markets in poorer economies for industrial goods.
Agriculture comprises around eight percent of total global exports but it is crucial to unblocking the Doha round aimed at boosting the world economy and allowing poor countries to use trade as an exit from poverty.
India also needs a deal that will ensure its “small and infant industries“ do not have to face competition from cheap goods in industrialized countries.

DAKAR, Senegal,
Dec. 3--Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade said his country like others would not sign a new trade pact proposed by the European Union for poor African, Caribbean and Pacific nations, local radio reported.
The European Commission and the 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific rim countries making up the so-called ACP group are struggling to clinch new agreements by the end of the year, when current preferential trade conditions expire, AFP reported.
According to private Senegalese radio station RFM, Wade denounced the pacts proposed by the EU to ACP countries to replace preferential trade agreements that Europeans have traditionally given their former colonies.
“I say that Senegal will not sign these accords,“ Wade said, noting that they have been rejected by the regional group of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
Early last month, the 15-nation ECOWAS had announced that it was not ready to conclude the trade pacts “in their current state.“ Faced with this refusal, Wade said the EU was seeking to sign separate accords with each country. “I will not sign a separate pact,“ Wade said.
On Friday, Sierra Leone said it was ready to sign a new trade agreement. The EU says it has “intermediate“ agreements with Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique.
However, the proposed trade pact has been rejected by many countries and international organizations, fearing the effects on the poor ACP nations.
The new agreements would require ACP countries to gradually open their markets to European goods in exchange for open access to European markets from January 1, 2008, with the exception of rice and sugar.
Existing trade agreements giving preferential market access to the former colonies have to be replaced by the end of the year because the World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that they were illegal.

LONDON, Dec. 3--World Oil prices fell on Monday, holding under 89 dollars a barrel, as traders looked ahead to this week’s crucial production meeting of crude producers’ group OPEC. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, sank 35 cents to $88.36 per barrel. Brent North Sea crude for January slid 16 cents to $88.10, AFP reported.
In another development, the dollar slipped in sluggish Asian trade on Monday as participants stayed on the sidelines awaiting fresh leads from some key economic events this week, dealers said.
But the US currency remained well above last week’s two-year lows against the yen, supported by easing concerns about the outlook for the US economy amid growing expectations of another Federal Reserve interest rate cut, they added.
The dollar dipped to 110.55 yen in Tokyo afternoon trade from 111.21 in New York late on Friday.
The euro rose to 1.4665 dollars from 1.4632 but eased to 162.08 yen from 162.80.
Market players refrained from taking positions ahead of economic data and speeches by world finance chiefs this week, dealers said.
“It is difficult to take positions now as this week is eventful ranging from speeches by central bankers to key indicators such as US employment data,“ said Yosuke Hosokawa, head of Chuo Mitsui Trust Bank’s forex group.
US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was due to speak at a housing forum Monday where he may reveal some details on a plan reportedly being drawn up by the US administration to freeze interest rates on certain subprime home loans.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet meanwhile is due to speak to the press Thursday following a eurozone interest rate decision.