Photo Gallery>>>

    BALI, Indonesia, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, Saturday adopted a plan to negotiate a new global warming pact by 2009 after the U.S. delegation said that it would accept a compromise proposal.

    Indonesian Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar, the president of the meeting, banged down his gavel on the deal to cheering applause, sealing a compromise between rich and poor countries, which had disputed over climate policies during the two-week meeting.

    The climate conference, which kicked off in Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Dec. 3 and was scheduled to end on Friday, has lasted into Saturday as tough negotiations were going on among about 190 countries' delegations over the wording of the final text of the meeting.

    The United States on Saturday dropped its opposition to a proposal by the main developing nation bloc, the G77, for rich nations to do more for the developing world to fight rising greenhouse emissions, breaking a deadlock between rich and poor nations.

    "We will go forward and join consensus," Paula Dobriansky, who was heading the U.S. delegation, told the meeting, triggering cheers and applause from many in the audience.

    The talks have agreed to a roadmap for two-year negotiations on a new climate regime. The planned treaty would take effect at the end of 2012 when the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.

    The Kyoto Protocol, which binds 36 industrialized countries to reduce emissions by an average 5 percent below the 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

    The "Bali Roadmap" was approved by consensus among the nearly 190 members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) after tough negotiations.

    The decision includes a clear agenda for the key issues to be negotiated up to 2009, including action for adapting to the negative consequences of climate change, such as droughts and floods; ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ways to widely deploy climate-friendly technologies and financing both adaptation and mitigation measures.

    Concluding negotiations in 2009 will ensure that the new deal can enter into force by 2013, following the expiry of the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the UNFCCC said in a press release.

    "This is a real breakthrough, a real opportunity for the international community to successfully fight climate change," said Rachmat Witoelar, Indonesian Environment Minister and President of the conference.

    "Parties have recognized the urgency of action on climate change and have now provided the political response to what scientists have been telling us is needed," he said.

    Earlier this year, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a finding that if left unchecked, the world's average temperature could rise by as much as 6 degrees centigrade by the end of the century, causing serious harm to economies, societies and ecosystems worldwide.

    Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC said, "we now have a roadmap, we have an agenda and we have a deadline. But we also have a huge task ahead of us and time to reach agreement is extremely short, so we need to move quickly."

    While a new global deal is envisioned for 2013, countries also agreed on a number of steps that need to be taken immediately to further implement the existing commitments of Parties to the UNFCCC.

    The UN climate change conference was attended by around 11,000 participants, including U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and six heads of state.

    Four major UNFCCC meetings to implement the Bali roadmap are foreseen for next year, the first to be held in March or April, according to the UNFCCC's press release.

    With over 190 Parties, UNFCCC has near universal membership andis the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. Next year's climate change conference will be held in Poznan, Poland.

Special Report: Fight against Global Warming

A UN climate conference Saturday adopted a plan to negotiate a new global warming pact by 2009 after the U.S. delegation accepted a compromise proposal. (Xinhua Photo)