The United States has urged a tough 2020 target for rich nations to axe greenhouse gas emissions to be dropped from a draft text at climate change talks in Bali, delegates said yesterday.

The December 3-14 meeting is seeking to launch two years of talks on a new pact to slow global warming but is split about whether to include guidelines such as a cut in emissions by rich nations of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

"The numbers are still in the text. There has been a lot of pressure to take them out," one delegate with intimate knowledge of the draft negotiations said. He corrected an earlier statement that the numbers had been removed.