Negotiators at a new round of UN climate talks, opening in north China's Tianjin Municipality on Monday, are expected to pave the way for "concrete outcomes" at the year-end Cancun summit in Mexico, though no legally binding agreement is expected.

China's State Councilor Dai Bingguo delivers a speech at the opening session of the meeting on Oct 4 in Tianjin. [Xinhua]

"A concrete outcome in Cancun is urgently needed," said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), at a press conference after the opening session.

"If you want a tangible outcome in December, now is the time to clarify what could constitute an achievable and politically balanced package for Cancun."

She urged the negotiators to accelerate the search for common ground and demonstrate "flexibility" and "a spirit of compromise" to reach a balanced outcome.

About 3,100 delegates from 177 parties under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol are attending the meeting on Oct. 4-9.

They have two primary tasks. One is to narrow their differences and make a 70-page negotiating text under the UNFCCC "slimmer" to submit to the Cancun Conference scheduled for Nov. 29-Dec. 10 this year in Mexico.

Another task is to focus on a draft proposal and prepare a better document under the Kyoto Protocol for the Cancun Conference to facilitate agreement on more points under the Kyoto Protocol.

Three rounds of such talks have been held this year. The Tianjin gathering is the final meeting before the Cancun Conference and the first time that such a formal meeting of its kind has been convened in China.

However, there has been a broad agreement that countries would not pursue a legally binding agreement in Cancun, Figueres said.

"This year countries have realized that they can not build a tall building without putting in place the foundation for that building. Thus, the governments are focusing on the foundations of a regime."

They will identify what the "corner stones" for the foundations are and will be busy working for an agreement on each of the corner stones, she said.

At a Monday press conference, Artur Runge-Metzger, one of top negotiators of the Europe Union (EU), stressed a "filtering" of the 70-page negotiating text at the Tianjin meeting.

The EU would like to see negotiators reach a broad agreement at the Tianjin meeting on what issues can be achieved at Cancun and focus on these issues.

"What we can achieve in Cancun will only be a certain number of items that have already been in the negotiating text, which all the countries think can make sufficient progress to come to a decision," Metzger said. "As for the things not decided in Cancun, we will have to continue the negotiations."

The EU reaffirmed that it will contribute 2.4 billion euros annually from 2010 to 2012 as the bloc reiterated a quick capital injection was crucial for preparing for the implementation of the new climate change agreement.

"For the EU, multilateralism, within the UN framework, remains the core of finding global solutions for global perspective," said an EU statement distributed to the delegates.

Makase Nyaphisi, on behalf of the Least Developed Countries (LDC), said the need for adequate and accessible financial support has become more urgent in the face of continued adverse effects of climate change.

"It is not morally responsible to continue leaving the most vulnerable countries, particularly the LDCs, to overstretch their limited national resources towards addressing climate change related disasters at the expense of their social and economic developments," he said.