"Time Running Out For December Climate Pact-U.N."

"BONN -- About 180 nations met for U.N. climate talks on Monday amid warnings that time was running out for them to reach agreement on a hugely complex pact, due for completion at the end of the year.

About 2,400 delegates at the Aug 10-14 negotiations in Bonn will try to shorten a draft text, outlining options for combating global warming, that has swollen to about 200 pages from 50 just a few months ago.

'Time is running out,' Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters in a conference hall where a large clock is ticking down the 118 days left until a meeting of environment ministers in Copenhagen in December."

Alister Doyle reports for Reuters August 11, 2009.