The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Bali

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd urged the United States to follow his country's lead and ratify the Kyoto Protocol, while rich and poor nations appeared divided Wednesday over what a future climate change pact should look like.

Rudd signed documents this week to formally adopt the accord that caps greenhouse gas emissions, reversing a decade of Australian resistance and leaving the United States as the only industrialized country to refuse to sign on.

"Our position vis-a-vis Kyoto is clear cut, and that is that all developed and developing countries need to be part of the global solution," the newly elected prime minister told the Southern Cross Broadcasting radio network in Australia.

"And therefore we do need to see the United States as a full ratification state," he said.

His comments put further pressure on the United States at the U.N. Climate Change conference in Bali, where nearly 190 nations hope to launch a two-year negotiating process that will result in a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Failure to continue reducing emissions, experts warn, will almost certainly lead to catastrophic droughts and floods, and deaths linked to heat waves and disease.