The UN's crucial climate change summit in Mexico may be just five months away, but the major players in the long-running negotiations are still a long way from agreement if the latest round of informal talks in Rome last week is anything to go by.

The two day ministerial meeting of the 17 member Major Economies Forum (MEF) ended last Thursday with attendees admitting that little in the way of concrete progress had been delivered.

Representatives of the world's largest industrialised and emerging economies were joined at the meeting by officials from a number of developing countries that are expected to play a key role at the Mexico Summit, including negotiators from Ethiopia and Bangladesh.

The group discussed all of the main areas where the long-running negotiations remain deadlocked, including issues surrounding climate change funding for developing nations, emissions targets and mechanisms for transferring clean technologies.

The talks also addressed the vexed topic of how to measure, report and verify (MRV) different countries' pledged emissions cuts - an issue that sparked a row between the US and China at last year's Copenhagen Summit that saw the Chinese delegation reject proposals for a system of international emissions verification which it said would violate its sovereignty.

(BusinessGreen)

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