* Progress at climate U.N. talks

* Promised greenhouse gas cuts by rich fall short

By Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn

BONN, Germany, June 12 (Reuters) - Climate talks ending on Friday made progress towards a new U.N. treaty to curb global warming but fell short of calls by developing nations for the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

"I look back on this as a significant session that has advanced our work in important ways," Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told a news conference of the June 1-12 meeting among 183 nations.

He said governments staked out far clearer views after a first review of a draft legal text of a treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. It will curb greenhouse gases mainly emitted by burning fossil fuels.

"There is no question that industrialised countries need to raise their sights in terms of mid-term emission cuts," he said, despite recession racking many developed nations.

De Boer said cuts presented by rich nations amounted at best to average cuts of up to 24 percent below 1990 levels -- far short of demands by developing nations.

And his number excludes the United States, which plans merely to cut emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020, a cut of about 14 percent from 2007. Including the United States would roughly halve the average cuts by industrialised nations.

Developing countries also called for more.

"We finally managed to have a positive exchange on the numbers" for developed nations, China's climate ambassador Yu Qingtai said. China and the United States are top emitters.

"I view that as a sign of progress but still we hear repeated statements resisting calls for further meaningful cuts," he told Reuters.

China and many developing nations want the rich to cut by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to avoid the worst of global warming set to spur more droughts, floods, rising sea levels, disease and extinction of species of animals and plants.

LONG WAY

"We have advanced perhaps a couple of miles towards Copenhagen. We still have thousands to go," said Jennifer Morgan of the London-based E3G think-tank.

She said that heads of government, at summits such as the Group of Eight in Italy in June or at the United Nations in September, would have to tackle the deadlock on key issues.

"We've had a useful discussion about targets -- the first ever since 2005 when negotiations started (in Montreal)," said Alf Wills of South Africa. "That's a first step. The challenge is to convert options into negotiation on numbers."

Japan set a goal on Wednesday of a cut of 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, disappointing many delegates.

Outside the talks in a Bonn hotel, protesters brought along two live camels and laid out some sand to illustrate fears of creeping desertification.

"We spit on weak targets," one banner said, another said: "Shrinking targets, growing deserts".

The chair of a group looking at new actions to curb emissions by all countries said a draft text had swollen with new ideas from about 50 pages to 200. Big breakthroughs were likely to happen only in Copenhagen, he said.

"This is like the evolutionary process in reverse. The Big Bang comes at the end," said Michael Zammit Cutajar, of Malta.

"We are still lighting the fuse."

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/ (Editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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