Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations' Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the declaration issued by the Group of Eight (G8) in Heiligendamm, Germany, was "everything I had hoped for."

The communique gave a spur to talks for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol -- the emissions-cutting pact which runs out in 2012 -- and spells out that any deal should be global and come under the auspices of the UNFCCC, he told AFP in an interview from Bonn.

"It very clearly calls for a launch of negotiations in Bali in December of this year, it calls for conclusion of negotiations in 2009 in order to have a post-2012 climate-change regime in place under the auspices of the UN," said de Boer.

He suggested the United States and Canada, another G8 member, had made significant concessions.

"Very recently, (Washington) indicated that it was too early, it was premature to begin negotiations on a post-2012 climate change regime, so that's a very clear shift. And Canada has been a bit wobbly in terms of whether it was staying inside the Kyoto family or not. So this... is a very important signal."

President George W. Bush has always opposed the Kyoto Protocol, arguing its binding caps on emissions would be too costly for the oil-dependent US economy.

He also said it was unfair because its present format only required industrial countries, and not emerging economies, to make such pledges.

However, the US has remained an active member of the UNFCCC, which is Kyoto's parent treaty, even while abandoning the Protocol itself.

Bush last week proposed that the United States and a small group of major emitters get together and, from next year, decide a package of long-range cuts.

That initiative deeply worried Kyoto's supporters. Some of them feared it was an attempt to set up a rival forum, outside the UNFCCC, to promote voluntary curbs and thus subvert the Kyoto process.

But the G8 declaration "removes the threat," said de Boer.

The US-led talks could be considered a "sort of sidestep", in which major emitters would get together "and see what they can contribute" rather than be any substitute for the UN process, he said.

But De Boer added that many problems remained ahead, especially in resolving how to encourage big developing countries to tackle their own emissions.

"The question is how the discussion will go with the Plus Five, China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa," he said.

"On the one hand, they've indicated an increased willingness to act on climate change so long as it's in line with objectives of economic growth and poverty eradication. But at the same time, they've also said very clearly that to go further, they need incentives and they need help."

In Thursday's declaration, the G8 leaders agreed "the UN climate process is the appropriate forum for negotiating future global action on climate change."

They called on "all parties to actively and constructively participate" in Bali, and set 2009 as the goal for a global agreement under the UNFCCC.

And they said they "welcome" the US offer of talks among major emitters, describing it as a "dialogue (that) will support the UN climate process and report back to the UNFCCC."

All rights reserved. copyright 2018 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.