Climate talks must ensure carbon trading: WBank official

Major talks on global warming next month must provide reassurances for the future of the market in greenhouse-gas emissions beyond 2012, the World Bank's environment chief said Monday.

"What they have to find out is how to ensure that carbon trading does not collapse," Inger Andersen, the Bank's vice-president for sustainable development, told AFP in an interview.

She added that "finding a way that that can be ensured would be very important to the world".

Carbon trading began under the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only treaty to set down targeted curbs in man-made gases that trap solar heat, inflicting potentially catastrophic changes to the world's climate system.

Developed countries which have ratified the Protocol, mainly in Europe, can buy or sell credits to help meet their emissions quota.

The Protocol's current roster of pledges runs out at the end of 2012. As a result, the future of the market has been cast into doubt by uncertainty surrounding talks on a global climate treaty beyond this date.