A successful outcome in the latest round of UN climate talks is going to depend on countries compromising, Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne warned.

Government ministers from around the world are gathering in Cancun, Mexico, in a bid to make progress on a new global agreement to stem climate change – after efforts to secure an international deal ground to a halt at last year’s conference in Copenhagen.

Mr Huhne has been asked by the Mexican government chairing the talks to lead consultations on the future of the existing climate treaty, the Kyoto protocol, which was a major sticking point last year in Copenhagen.

Developing countries do not want to see Kyoto abandoned, as it legally commits rich nations to emissions cuts - but the US has not signed up to it and the treaty does not include major emitters such as China.

The EU originally said it wanted to see a single treaty covering all countries, but a single legally-binding deal failed to materialise in Copenhagen, and only a weak voluntary accord in which countries offered to curb emissions was achieved.

Europe now says it is happy for Kyoto to continue into a second phase if another parallel legal deal can be agreed covering countries such as the US and China.

But last week at the talks, Japan said it would not commit to a second phase of the protocol after the first phase ends in 2012, a statement which made the issue a “live one” again, Mr Huhne said.

It had been expected that the Cancun talks would concentrate on issues where it was thought progress could be made, including providing finance for poor countries to cope with climate change and tackling deforestation.