India is open to ideas put forth at U.N. climate talks in South Africa but still needs reassurance from the developed world on emissions cuts, the country's climate negotiator said.

I have come to Durban with an open mind," said Indian Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan at the United-Nations-sponsored climate change conference in South Africa, in reference to the demands for a new legally binding treaty by the European Union, Japan and other countries.

"But I would like to know whether it would be binding only for mitigation and whether it will be same for Annex-1 (developed) and non-Annex 1 (developing) countries," she said, Press Trust of India reports.

The Guardian newspaper reported that Natarajan on Monday ruled out signing an EU proposal for a new single, legally binding agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol, the first commitment period of which expires in 2012. The treaty stipulates that all industrialized nations, with the exception of the United States, are legally bound to reduce emissions five percent from 1990 levels.

The EU is willing to sign to a second commitment period if developing economies would agree to take binding carbon emissions cuts in the future.

"Could we reassure each other against unilateral actions in such a treaty? How will the ratification process of Kyoto Protocol be resolved and most importantly we at this time of our development we need to keep the imperatives of developing country in mind and the need to grow," Natarajan said.

Responding to accusations that India was dealing a blow to the negotiations, she said, "I don't perceive this as a correct perspective," while maintaining that India's "development imperative is important."

Her comments come amid still-unresolved divisions between developed and developing nations on a climate treaty.

India, the world's third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, has urged that climate negotiators revisit India's three-point agenda, which covers equitable sharing of atmospheric carbon space, technology sharing and intellectual property rights and unilateral trade barriers.

The Times of India newspaper reported Wednesday that key countries agreed that the issue of equity should be included in the agenda for all future talks, while agreements on the other two issues weren't settled.

Some 194 countries are represented at the conference, with more than 15,000 participants including journalists, the United Nations said. The high-level segment of the climate change talks, involving government negotiators and ministers, began concludes Friday.

Positions far apart in Kyoto row at climate talks
Durban, South Africa (AFP) Dec 7, 2011 - World talks on climate change struggled on Wednesday to overcome a rift on the future of the Kyoto Protocol with just over two days left on the clock to bridge the gap.

Sharpening the sense of division in Durban, Canada declared that, for it, Kyoto was now history.

It confirmed it would not renew pledges after the landmark pact's first roster of carbon curbs expires at the end of 2012.

"We have long said we will not take on a second commitment under the Kyoto Protocol. We will not obstruct or discourage those that do, but Kyoto for Canada is in the past," Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent said.

Kent's slapdown of a treaty viewed as iconic by poorer countries hit the nerve point of the talks, which have until late Friday to avoid the second bustup in two years.

The conference is taking place under the 194-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which has struggled for nearly two decades to roll back what scientists say is a dire threat for mankind.

Several key nations beside Canada, including Japan and Russia, have said they will not renew their Kyoto vows, which are legally binding.

They say to do so would be senseless so long as emerging giants and the United States, which has refused to ratify Kyoto, are not bound by the treaty's constraints.

"For Canada, the Kyoto Protocol is not where the solution lies," Kent said.

"It is an agreement that covers fewer than 30 percent of global emissions, by some estimates 15 percent or less. It's an approach that does not lead to a more comprehensive engagement of key parties who need to be actively a part of a global agreement."

So far, however, only Europe, which accounts for barely 11 percent of global CO2 emissions, has shown any enthusiasm for renewing its Kyoto vows.

And even then there is a condition: all the world's major emitters -- including the United States and China -- must agree in principle to conclude a binding climate pact by 2015 and implement it by 2020.

"Even if other countries are not ready, we are ready to commit to the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol and we do this in order to preserve what it took us so many years to build up," said European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard.

"But we must be reassured that others would join us in a new legally-binding framework after the second commitment period and we must also know when they will do that."

But none of the big polluters has bought in to Europe's "roadmap" idea.

The United States, for its part, is calling for countries to implement a looser, voluntary approach that was born in the stormy final hours of the 2009 Copenhagen Summit.

For developing countries, Kyoto is a touchstone of cooperation between rich and poor, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday pleaded with the talks to keep the treaty alive.

Brazil, South Africa, India and China have described a second commitment period as "a must," a position loudly supported on Wednesday by the poorest countries and vulnerable small-island states.

South Africa, as host, gathered a group of countries into an informal huddle known as an indaba, out of which four options emerged for tackling carbon emissions in the medium and longer-term.

Despite the row over Kyoto, other issues have made progress or have a good chance of doing so, said delegates.

They include the design of a "Green Climate Fund" that by 2020 would help channel up to 100 billion dollars a year to help poor countries tackle worsening flood, drought, rising seas and storms.

There is also optimism that the conference would give the green light to a levy on carbon emissions from shipping, which until now has been excluded from international curbs. Part of the tax would be channelled into the climate fund.