The Resources Ministry has expressed satisfaction that many of the European Union's requests at the 17th UN conference on Climate Change have been accepted.

The conference, which was held in Durban, South Africa, ended today after it was lengthened by two days to conclude the long and intensive negotiations between the different groups.

During the negotiations the EU insisted on the need of a long term agreement which bound all countries to commit to reduce greenhouse gases so that the average increase in temperature would not be more than 2°C over pre-industrial levels.

The EU made it clear it was willing to continue to abide by the obligations it went in for through the Kyoto Protocol for the period mill 2013-2020.

But to do so, other countries, especially the major pollutors, had to move forward and define how they were to meet the general aims on which agreement had already been reached.

The declaration agreed upon today says that an agreement on an implementation road map has to be reached by 2015 to keep all major carbon polluters responsible for reducing greenhouse gases. The agreement will start to be implemented in 2020.

Today's agreement also sets up structures to collect and distribute billions of euros to poor countries to help them develop mitigation and adaptation measures, even through the transfer of technology. New monitoring and verification rules for emission reduction were also established.