UNITED States President Barack Obama reached agreement with major developing powers on a climate deal yesterday, a U.S. official reported, but he said the accord was only a first step and was insufficient to fight climate change.

The official said Obama, China’s Premier Wen Jiabao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma had reached a “meaningful agreement,” after a day of deep divisions between leaders of rich and developing nations.

Reuters news agency said Brazil also approved the deal that appeared to bypass other participants at the United Nations-led climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The accord did not have guaranteed approval from all 193 nations. Noticeably, European Union nations were absent from the meeting.

Tensions between China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters, had been particularly acute after Obama — in a message directed at the Chinese — said any deal to cut emissions would be “empty words on a page” unless it was transparent and accountable.

Negotiators struggled all day to find a compromise acceptable to all 193 countries which could avert the threat of dangerous climate change, including floods, droughts, rising sea levels and species extinctions.

The BBC said confusion dominated the final scheduled day as several draft texts were circulated Friday afternoon.

“I should say a little bluntly to all of you that I am a little bit frustrated,” Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told the summit.

He complained that prime ministers and presidents were stuck in the convention centre until 2 am. “To submit heads of state to certain kinds of discussion like the one we had last night – I haven’t seen such a meeting in a long time.”

He said the marathon negotiating session – joined by major economies like Britain, China, India and Japan – with the least developed countries represented by Ethiopia and Grenada – reminded him of the long nights of bargaining with business executives when he was a union boss.

Lula received rousing applause for his speech. He told delegates: “We, the developing countries… when we think in money, we should not think that someone is paying us a favour.

“We should not think that someone is giving something that we are begging for, because the money that would be put on the table is the payment for greenhouse emissions released over two centuries by those countries that industrialised themselves first.”

President Lula added: “I would love to leave Copenhagen with the most perfect document in the world… I’m not sure if some angel or wise man will come down to this plenary and put in our minds the intelligence that we lacked up until now. I don’t know if that’s going to be possible.”

The Guardian newspaper of London said it was even worse for environment ministers and negotiators from industrialised countries who stayed on to talk, but were kept waiting for several hours while negotiators from developing countries talked among themselves. By 7.30am yesterday, with negotiators still stuck on the first page of a draft text, they too decided to call it a night.

A draft text under discussion Friday included US$100 billion in climate aid annually by 2020 for poor countries to combat climate change, and targets to limit warming and halve global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

But it abandoned earlier ambitions for any deal in Copenhagen to be turned into a legally binding treaty next year.

“Today, following a multilateral meeting between President Obama, Premier Wen, Prime Minister Singh, and President Zuma a meaningful agreement was reached,” the U.S. official said.

“It is not sufficient to combat the threat of climate change but it is an important first step.”

“No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress,” the official added.

Under the five-nation agreement, rich and poor nations had agreed to a “finance mechanism,” emissions cuts to curb global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, and “to provide information on the implementation of their actions.”

Earlier, Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh told Reuters the December 7-18 meeting was “close to seeing a legally non-binding Copenhagen outcome after 36 hours of gruelling, intensive negotiations.”

The EU had pressed for a strong deal to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius and which included tough carbon curbs from other industrialized nations such as the U.S.

Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several meters sea level rise, species extinctions and crop failures.

“Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark,” said John Ashe, chair of the Kyoto talks under the UN.

The BBC said it is also understood that countries have agreed a form of monitoring carbon emissions.

The goal in Copenhagen was a political agreement on curbing global greenhouse gas emissions and providing funds to developing countries, to help them adopt green technologies and adapt to the effects of climate change.

This political agreement would serve as the basis for a much longer and more detailed agreement, which is now due to be finalised in 2010.

This month was the original deadline for completing the deal, but the negotiations have been tougher than expected.

The main areas of disagreement include:

** The amount by which developed countries must cut their greenhouse gas emissions

** How much effort developing countries should make to curb their emissions

** Procedures for monitoring and verifying each country’s emissions

** Whether countries should be legally bound to meet emission reduction targets

** The amount of money developed countries should transfer to developing countries, to help them curb emissions and adapt to the effect of climate change

** The mechanism for transferring this money, and how it should be raised

** The future of the Kyoto Protocol – whether it should be part of the Copenhagen deal, or replaced by it

** How many degrees of warming, above pre-industrial levels, should be regarded as the acceptable maximum

In order to help developing countries curb their greenhouse gas emissions, industrialised nations have agreed in principle to help them in areas such as renewable energy.

Many countries are thinking about how to prepare for the impacts of climate change – what sorts of adaptation will be necessary. These include measures such as building sea defences, securing fresh water supplies and developing new crop varieties.

Developing countries are looking for substantial and reliable finance to help them adapt. Their argument is that as the industrialised world has caused the problem, it must pay to sort it out.

Measures to protect forests will be a component of the deal.

Developing countries are looking for money in the order of hundreds of billions of dollars each year for mitigation, the ballpark figure that the International Energy Agency calculates is necessary to fund a large-scale switch to low-carbon energy.

A number of studies, including one by the World Bank, also suggest that a further $100Bn per year or thereabouts will be needed to help poorer countries adapt.

By comparison, the amount of overseas aid currently given each year by rich countries is in the region of $100Bn.

During the summit, African countries and small island states accused industrialised countries of trying to hijack the talks. Denmark accused the poor countries of being deliberately obstructive. China and the U.S. – the two biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions – were in a stand-off over demands to provide a full accounting of emissions cuts.