Struggling climate talks look to UN summit for push

Delegates reported faltering progress in the 12-day session, a waypoint towards a deal to keep climate-altering carbon emissions to safer levels.

"Political will needs to emerge at the New York summit," Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace told a press conference.

Taking place under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) , the negotiations seek to forge a historic deal in Paris in 2015 that will take effect from 2020.

Under it, 195 countries would make voluntary pledges on carbon gases so that warming does not breach a threshold of two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times.

They would also channel financial aid to poorer countries to shore up defences against climate change and provide cleaner technology to help wean them off fossil fuels.

The haggling will get into higher gear from the second quarter of 2015, when the parties are supposed to have put their pledges on the table.

But before then, they have to agree common rules for vetting these efforts to ensure there is transparency and pledge-makers are held to account.

"It's disappointing that negotiators didn't make more progress at this session on building greater consensus on the information that will be required in national contributions," said Alden Meyer, a veteran observer with the US expert group the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

"Many countries are already starting to work on their post-2020 contributions, and they need to have a sense of what information they will be expected to provide."

The Bonn talks will be followed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's special summit on climate change in New York on September 23.

After that will come a new UNFCCC round from October 20-25, ahead of the forum's annual parlay, taking place in Lima, Peru, from December 1-12.