Melbourne: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said he is looking forward to work closely with China, India and the United States to hammer out a global climate change agreement by the end of 2009.

The hard-fought deal by the 190-nation Bali climate conference to negotiate a new pact to fight global warming has already run into rough weather with the US expressing concerns over some provisions and saying major developing countries like India and China should be set emission targets.

Rudd, according to The Age , said Australia would make the negotiations over the next two years "a core priority". Australia would be going into them "with sleeves rolled up and prepared to put in the hard yards", Rudd said adding, in the year ahead, he hoped to spend as much time as possible with China s leaders to get greater consensus on future action and also wanted to have talks with India.

Rudd also said the climate issues would certainly "be forming a part of my discussions with the US Administration". The challenge for Australia now was "to frame our own national targets, which are cognisant of the science".

While the US is concerned about ensuring developing countries bear enough of the burden, Rudd said there was now a commitment by such countries "to engage in measurable, reportable and verifiable, nationally appropriate mitigation actions".

It was a step forward, although not as much as the international community would have liked, he said. Meanwhile, opposition environment spokesman Greg Hunt welcomed the road map "for including China, India, and Indonesia".

Source : PTI