COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – U.N. climate talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement on Saturday when delegates ”noted” an accord struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that falls far short of the conference’s original goals.

”Finally we sealed a deal,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. ”The ‘Copenhagen Accord’ may not be everything everyone had hoped for, but this … is an important beginning.”

A long road lies ahead. The accord — weaker than a legally binding treaty and weaker even than the ‘political’ deal many had foreseen — left much to the imagination.

Another round of climate talks is scheduled for November 2010 in Mexico. Negotiators are hoping to nail down then what they failed to achieve in Copenhagen — a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. But there are no guarantees. Read more