Developing nations want global climate accord by 2011

Four major developing countries meeting in South Africa have called for a global, legally binding agreement on climate change to be finalised by next year at the latest.

Environment ministers from Brazil, South Africa, India and China met in Cape Town to discuss on how to speed up a process of finalising a global agreement that would require rich nations to cut carbon emissions and reduce global warming.

"Ministers felt that a legally binding outcome should be concluded at Cancun, Mexico in 2010, or at the latest in South Africa by 2011," ministers from the developing world's powerhouses said in a joint statement, referring to UN climate talks.

The Copenhagen meeting, held last year and aimed at thrashing out a new climate treaty to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, was widely criticised for failing to produce a new treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

"Developing countries strongly support international legally binding agreements, as the lack of such agreements hurts developing countries more than developed countries," the statement said.

The ministers also called for developed nations to fast-track the release of a $10 billion fund to help poor countries "to develop, test and demonstrate practical implementation approaches to both adaptation and mitigation".