Battle-weary climate envoys endorse outlines of UN pact

Negotiators wound down a bruising round of talks Friday with broad agreement on the rough outlines of a UN climate pact to be inked in December.

"It is so decided," the co-chairman of the talks, Daniel Reifsnyder, said at the close of a fraught negotiating round in Bonn—gavelling through a proposal to endorse the draft text to emerge from the five-day haggle.

The meeting was tasked with producing a clear and concise framework for political compromises to be thrashed out later, at the level of ministers and heads of state.

But it was marred by arguments, often virulent, about procedure and protocol, and delegates agreed that further editing work will need to be done.

The talks got off to a false start when developing nations accused rich ones Monday of cutting their core demands out of the emerging text.

Much of the rest of the session was spent reinserting dropped phases, and the text grew from 20 pages on Monday to 34 by Wednesday, and 55 at the meeting's close.