The first of the five special meeting this year towards achieving a new climate change agreement failed to advance in terms of commitments for reducing emissions that cause global warming. Rich and poor countries clashed about the obligations they each would have for reducing greenhouse-effect emissions.

The special meeting of members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, held Mar. 29 to Apr. 8 in Bonn, Germany, sought progress on a text for the new pact they hope to sign in December, the objective of which is to prevent the continued and grave changes to the Earth's climate.

The world's governments have accepted the scientific bases of the agreement: in order for global temperature hikes to remain less than two degrees Celsius — the threshold of disaster — there must be a global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 that is 40 percent lower than 1990 emissions.

The new agreement would replace the main provisions of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012 and only requires the leading industrial countries that ratified it to cut emissions. The United States, among the leaders in greenhouse emissions, did not take part in the Kyoto pact.