Brazil joins 'high ambition coalition'

Brazil said Friday it had joined the European Union, United States and 79 developing nations in a group calling for a far-reaching deal at UN climate-saving talks in Paris.

The informal "high ambition coalition", announced by the European Union during the 195-nation conference in Paris this week, includes more than half of the countries of the world but is not a formal negotiating bloc.

Nevertheless, the alliance is calling for a legally binding, fair, durable agreement in Paris that must set a long-term goal, be reviewed every five years and include a system for tracking progress.

Brazil is the first major emerging economy to join the group.

"If you want to tackle climate change, you need ambition and political will," Brazil's Foreign Minister Izabella Teixeira said in a statement.

"Brazil proudly supports the high ambition coalition and pledges our political support to this effort."

Among the major players absent from the so-called high ambition coalition are India and China. India in particular has balked at moving toward the higher end of the spectrum on all these goals.

However, the "high ambition coalition" members are not united on some key points, including on how the rich nations should mobilise finances for the developing world to pay for the cost of climate change.

"This move by Brazil could change the whole dynamic in the last closing hours of this conference," said Greenpeace analyst Martin Kaiser. "Missing from the coalition were any of the major emerging economies."