About 190 countries meet for UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland, next week with scant mention of a deal in Vienna last year by almost all rich nations to consider cuts in emissions of 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

“That target is perhaps something that’s on the back-burner for the time being,” said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the UN. Climate Panel that said last year that industrialized nations needed to make such cuts to avoid the worst of warming.

Pachauri said world leaders might find it easier to discuss ambitious cuts in a few months, “after the dust settles” from the financial crisis. Poznan will review progress towards a new climate treaty to be agreed by the end of 2009 in Copenhagen...But he also told Reuters: “If we want to limit temperature increase to 2 Celsius (3.6 F), or thereabouts, then clearly (25-40) is the target we should be watching.”