AFP

NEW DELHI — The head of the UN's climate science panel said Wednesday there was little prospect of a breakthrough in efforts to forge a global agreement on climate change at a world meeting in December.

A new UN conference is due to be held in the Mexican resort of Cancun to try to build on a loose accord hammered out at marathon talks in Copenhagen that were widely regarded as a failure.

Cancun will host negotiators from November 29 to December 10 who are set to discuss a binding agreement on reducing carbon dioxide emissions that will replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in December 2012.

Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) told Indian news agency the Press Trust of India that a deal in Cancun "is not possible, particularly considering the situation in some countries."

He urged Mexico to be realistic and concentrate on pushing rich nations to provide funds to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change and reduce their emissions.

"For heaven's sake, please get the commitment on funding," he said.

India has stuck rigidly to its insistence that developed countries, which are responsible historically for global warming, should bear the burden of mitigating climate change and has resisted a legally binding treaty.

Last week, Mexico said it was striving to bring countries which felt excluded from the Copenhagen climate talks into the negotiations for this year's summit.