* Russia wants restrictions on all big polluters * China says global climate talks face enormous problems * American official refers to developed/developing divisions * South Africa calls for just solution By Janet McBride NOVO-OGARYOVO, Russia, Sept 11 (Reuters) - Russia said on Friday it would reject any new climate change agreement that imposed restrictions on Moscow but not bind other big polluters, illustrating the difficulties faced in putting a pact together. China's senior diplomat to the United Nations said on Friday in an interview that "enormous problems" remained to agree a global climate deal in Copenhagen in December [nPEK43720] and a U.S. official referred to the "difficult" nature of the talks. [nN10403348] The drive to agree a new deal in Copenhagen by the end of this year is already considered under threat by some nations, with world leaders seeking to revive the bogged-down negotiations at a U.N. summit in New York on Sept. 22. "We ratified the Kyoto protocol even though some colleagues tried to persuade us it was harmful to Russia's economy," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in a blunt message to those trying to thrash out an agreement. [nLB2724] "Other countries did not approve it and they are much greater polluters -- the United States," Putin told the Valdai group of academics and journalists at his Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow. "Let me say bluntly that the tenor of negotiations in the formal U.N. track has been difficult," Todd Stern, President Barack Obama's special envoy for climate change, said. In prepared testimony to the House energy independence and global warming panel, Stern said on Thursday: "Time is short and the negotiations have still too often foundered as a result of the ... developed/developing country divide." Global negotiators are confronted with "enormous problems", Sha Zukang, U.N. under-secretary general in charge of economic and social affairs, said on Friday. Shanghai-born Sha added that he had never seen such collective global political will to address an issue, speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Dalian. "The difficulty is how to translate this enormous political will and unprecedented public awareness about the urgency of addressing climate change into practical policies," he said. "Each and every head of state has domestic complications," said Sha. "That explains the slow progress." "Developed countries do have responsibilities towards developing countries in terms of finance and technology transfer, but I don't believe that developing countries should depend on this," he said. ZUMA URGES JUST SOLUTION Britain said this week that talks in Denmark to agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol would fail unless politicians from developing countries focused more on the longer-term climate threat and not an economic downturn. South Africa, whose over-reliance on coal-fired power stations make it Africa's worst polluter, also said this week it would not agree to any emission-cutting targets if doing so hurt its recession-hit economy. "It is critical that we address these challenges in a coordinated, just and equitable manner, that takes into account the needs of all humanity, no matter how rich or powerful," President Jacob Zuma said at a South Africa-EU Summit on Friday. [nLB12546] China will have to retool its engines of economic growth to help the world avoid increasingly dangerous levels of greenhouse gas emissions in coming decades, a leading expert on the economic impact of climate change said on Friday. [nPEK278534] Nicholas Stern, formerly a British Treasury official and World Bank chief economist, told a meeting in Beijing that transformation would rest on rich countries leading the way by cutting their own emissions and helping poor nations, including China, now the world's biggest emitter. After a sharp drop in emissions when the Soviet Union fell in 1991, Russia's industrial revival has kept its place as the world's third largest polluter behind China and America. Putin said the climate problem could only be solved on a global scale where all countries shared the burden. "The United States and China are leading economies and leading polluters. Should we restrain our development because of them? We won't agree with an approach that allows the exclusion of some countries." Russia has offered to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 10-15 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, but its emissions were already 34 percent below 1990 levels in 2007, the latest year data were available. Green groups and developing countries want industrialised nations to trim their emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels, referring to a range of cuts suggested by a U.N. panel of climate scientists. Small island states such as Tuvalu or the Maldives fear rising sea levels could wipe them off the map if tougher measures are not adopted to halt temperature growth that is leading to higher sea levels. Both China and the European Union have complained that the pace of the talks has been too slow with no side yet prepared to concede ground on issues considered to be of vital economic importance. (Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn; writing by Conor Sweeney; editing by Peter Millership)
A view of the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station near the Siberian village of Cheryomushki, about 520 km (323 miles) south of Krasnoyarsk, September 11, 2009. More than 2,000 people are working ...
