Major economies made progress in defining the building blocks of a new U.N. deal to fight climate change on Friday but ended split over whether to set a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The U.S.-led meeting of 17 nations accounting for 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, ended with common ground on sharing clean technologies, financing and possible sectoral emissions goals for industries such as steel or cement.

“In my view we have made significant progress,” Daniel Price, U.S. Deputy National Security Advisor for International Economic Affairs, told reporters after two days of talks including China, Russia, India and the European Union.

The talks shifted to a more positive mood after opening with criticisms of President George W. Bush for setting only a 2025 ceiling for halting a rise in U.S. emissions when other rich nations have set 1990 caps under the U.N.’s Kyoto Protocol.

“People are understanding each other better on a number of topics,” said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, who called progress “substantive” in work on a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed by the end of 2009.

Deep divisions remained about whether to set a goal of halving global emissions by 2050, favored by the European Union, Japan and Canada as part of a fight against warming that may bring more floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising seas.

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