Alexander F. Yuan, APFILE- Smoke billows from a chimney of a heating plant as the sun sets in Beijing in this file photo dated Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. U.N. climate talks being held in Bonn, Germany, are in gridlock Thursday May 24, 2012, as a rift between rich and poor countries risked undoing some of the advances made last year in the two-decade-long effort to control carbon emissions from fast-growing economies like China and India as well as developed industrialized nations that scientists say are overheating the planet.(AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, File)
Alexander F. Yuan, APFILE- Smoke billows from a chimney of a heating plant as the sun sets in Beijing in this file photo dated Monday, Feb. 13, 2012. U.N. climate talks being held in Bonn, Germany, are in gridlock Thursday May 24, 2012, as a rift between rich and poor countries risked undoing some of the advances made last year in the two-decade-long effort to control carbon emissions from fast-growing economies like China and India as well as developed industrialized nations that scientists say are overheating the planet.(AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan, File)
BONN, Germany (AP) — Another round of U.N. climate talks closed Friday without resolving how to share the burden of curbing man-made global warming, mainly because countries don't agree on who is rich and who is poor.China wants to maintain a decades-old division between developed and developing countries, bearing in mind that, historically, the West has released most of the heat-trapping gases that scientists say could cause catastrophic changes in climate.But the U.S. and Europe insisted during the two-week talks in Bonn that the system doesn't reflect current economic realities and must change as work begins on a new global climate pact set to be completed in 2015."The notion that a simple binary system is going to be applicable going forward is no longer one that has much relevance to the way the world currently works," U.S. chief negotiator Jonathan Pershing said.Countries like Qatar and Singapore are wealthier than the U.S. per capita but are still defined as developing countries under the classification used in the U.N. talks. So is China, the world's second largest economy.Finding a new system that better reflects the world today, while also acknowledging the historical blame for greenhouse gas emissions, is the biggest challenge facing the U.N. process as it seeks a global response to climate change."That is a fundamental issue," said Henrik Harboe, Norway's chief climate negotiator. "Some want to keep the old division while we want to look at it in a more dynamic way."The U.N. climate talks are based on the premise that industrialized countries must take the lead on climate change by committing to reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. They are also expected to provide money to help poor countries grow in a sustainable way and to protect the most vulnerable nations from rising sea levels, droughts and other consequences of a warming worldDisputes on how to categorize countries going forward was behind much of the procedural wrangling that slowed down the talks in Bonn. Delegates failed to agree on an agenda until the last day, leaving most of the work for a bigger summit in Qatar in November.A separate dispute between developing countries delayed the appointment of officials to steer the talks. That stalemate was also unlocked on the last day.The slow pace frustrated climate activists who fear that there won't be enough political will to rein in emissions to avoid dangerous levels of warming in coming decades."The talk here doesn't match the action that science says is required," said Mohamed Adow, senior climate change adviser at Christian Aid.China's lead negotiator Su Wei told The Associated Press that the proposed new deal, which would have binding commitments for all countries after 2020, must be based on the principle of "common but differentiated responsibility" enshrined in previous climate agreements."That means we still would continue the current division between developed and developing countries," Su said.He said China is still a developing country because if you look at wealth per capita, it barely makes the world's top 100. More than 100 million Chinese live below the poverty line, which Beijing has defined as about $1 a day.Still, Western officials say China's fast-growing energy needs and rising emissions mean it can no longer be off the hook in climate negotiations."We need to move into a system which is reflecting modern economic realities," EU negotiator Christian Pilgaard Zinglersen said.In the early 1950s, China accounted for just 2 percent of global emissions while the U.S. accounted for more than 40 percent, according to Climate Analytics, a climate research group based in Potsdam, Germany.Today China's share of global emissions exceeds 25 percent, while the U.S. share has fallen toward 20 percent.China and its supporters reject blame for stalling the climate talks, saying it is the U.S. and other developed nations that are unwilling to live up to their obligations to cut carbon emissions.The U.S. refused to join the only binding accord to limit emissions — the 1997 Kyoto Protocol— partly because it didn't include China.Seyni Nafo, spokesman for a group of African countries in the climate talks, noted that the U.S. also said that joining Kyoto would harm the U.S. economy. Years later, the U.N. climate effort still has little support in the U.S. Congress, which includes outspoken climate skeptics."We are hoping that they will get on board this time, which is not a given," Nafo said.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com.
Firefighters battle a wildfire south of Gardnerville, Nev., on Tuesday. The fast-moving blaze near the Nevada-California line destroyed homes and forced evacuationsBy Cathleen Allison, APWELLINGTON, Nev. (AP) – Fire crews in northern Nevada raced against Mother Nature, trying to secure a fire line Thursday above a second rural community before expected high winds moved in later in the day.
By Cathleen Allison, AP
InciWeb Incident Information System via AP
Joan Binnie took this shot of tulips in her front yard in Fieldbrook, Calif.
The nation's unusual warmth keeps on rolling: Through April, the USA is experiencing its warmest year on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced on Tuesday, with a national average temperature of 45 degrees.
GANNETT
By Mark Dadswell, Getty Images
Public opinion experts including Drexel University's Robert Brulle point to declining news coverage of global warming for the falling support of steps to fight greenhouse gases; others cite the economy's doldrums.Krosnick suggests that distrust of environmental scientists among Republican voters, expressed by about 41% of them in the poll, may explain much of the drop. Such distrust was not seen as strongly among independent and Democratic voters, he says. The average drop in support for these policies was about 7 percentage points among those who identified themselves as Democrats or independents vs. 14 points for Republicans.Since Republican Sen. John McCain expressed support for steps to slow global warming during the 2008 presidential race, "we have seen a significant shift in political rhetoric in the primary races in Republican debates," Krosnick says. (McCain says he no longer supports such steps.) This year, Republican debates regularly featured the views of likely nominee Mitt Romney, who has said, "We don't know what's causing climate change."Brulle says the effect of the economy on views about climate change needs to be more carefully studied. Even if the public supports steps to address global warming, Brulle says, "opinion on climate change and environmental issues overall has consistently ranked at the bottom of the overall public concerns" in polling. Just 1% of people ranked the environment as a "top concern" in the Gallup Poll in March.For more information about reprints & permissions, visit our FAQ's. To report corrections and clarifications, contact Standards Editor Brent Jones. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to letters@usatoday.com. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to corrections.usatoday.com. 
By Bo Rader, AP
By Jorge Leal, AP
Kim Austin, of Bloomfield, Mich., says this is the second year that the same two swans have chosen this small pond for their home. 
By Maya Sugarman, AP
"This large old Saguaro is located across the street," says the photographer, Cameron Davis. "Usually the flowers are inaccessible at the tops of the giant plants, fortunately this flower and buds are located on a rare low growing branch."
A "monster sunspot" more than 60,000 miles wide could send some powerful solar flares toward Earth on Wednesday, NASA says.
The sunspot -- actually a group of four spots, each larger than Earth, and smaller spots -- emerged over the weekend and was spotted by the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory and amateur astronomers, Spaceweather.com reported (via Space.com). It tossed off a moderately strong M-class flare today, and is expected to follow up with even stronger flares, possibly even X class.
By Cynthia Esparza, AP
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