More than 160 nations agreed Friday to consider how to reduce rapidly growing emissions from air and sea travel as they worked toward drafting an ambitious new treaty on global warming. The late-evening deal came amid signs of a compromise on another sticking point -- a Japanese proposal on setting industry standards that developing nations viewed with suspicion. Rich and poor countries are sharply divided on how to tackle global warming, despite growing fears that rising temperatures could put millions of people at risk by the end of the century. The five-day conference in Bangkok was tasked with setting the first step to complete a pact by the end of next year to follow the landmark Kyoto Protocol, which requires rich nations to slash gas emissions blamed for warming. “I am confident we will be able to bring this work forward,” said Harald Dovland, the chair of the meeting. A statement approved here by countries in the Kyoto treaty said they would look at how to “limit or reduce emissions” in aviation and shipping. The air and marine transport industries account for some three percent of greenhouse gas emissions. But the Kyoto treaty did not cover the two sectors, which are by nature hard to classify under individual nations. Delegates and environmentalists said there was an effort to water down the text by countries that are transport hubs, such as Singapore, or remotely located, such as Australia. The statement also gave a vote of confidence to carbon trading, in which rich countries and companies trade credits for slashing carbon output, raising the chances that such growing markets will be included in a post-Kyoto deal. But the conference was split by a dispute over a Japanese proposal to hold talks soon on the so-called “sectoral approach,” in which each industry is judged separately on eco-friendliness. Developing nations fear the sectoral approach makes Kyoto easier to meet for rich countries, which already have cleaner technology, and that it could be a backdoor way to legally require them for the first time to cut emissions. __
