COPENHAGEN -- Global warming talks entered what the top United Nations climate official described as "a very distinct and important moment in the process" Tuesday, as top ministers searched for a way to ensure the commitments nations made here would stand up over time.

Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, told reporters both large and small countries will have to make concessions in the coming days because "there is still an enormous amount of ground to be covered if this conference is to deliver what people around the world expect it to deliver."

The United States and other industrialized nations are still pressing for a way to verify that China, India and other emerging economies will make the greenhouse gas emissions cuts they've promised to make in the context of a new agreement, while developing countries argue these rich nations have not provided the financing and ambitious climate targets that would be commensurate with their historic responsibility for global warming.

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish chairman of the conference, said in an interview that monitoring and verifying future emissions cuts "is one of the very difficult issues because the major players both have serious red lines" on the issue. "One is waiting for the other [to move]. We must solve that problem."
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On Monday, the largest group of developing nations brought the talks to a halt as they accused the United States and other industrialized countries of forsaking the Kyoto Protocol, the climate agreement that currently imposes emission limits on nearly all of the world's developed nations.

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