Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) still said they were generally satisfied with the outcome of the week-long talks, which were organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and preceded a major conference the UNFCCC will hold with its 191 member states in Bali, Indonesia in December.

After hours of talks, the parties to the Kyoto Protocol finally agreed late Friday to recognise the need for industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25-40 percent by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

The figures had been spelt out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) -- the world's top climate-change experts -- as an option for policymakers seeking to keep global warming to less than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial levels.

The Vienna paper only said the Kyoto parties "recognised" the IPCC range and described it as providing "useful initial parameters for the overall level of ambition of further emissions reductions."

The parties "also recognised that achievement of these reduction objectives... would make an important contribution to overall global efforts" to fight climate change.

"By and large we have achieved the objectives we have set ourselves, in some sense we probably have gone beyond what we set ourselves," the chairman of the Kyoto parties' meeting, Leon Charles, told a press conference.

"The process is moving along, it's becoming more and more concrete," he said.

NGOs agreed that the Vienna talks had set the ball rolling for Bali but were more critical of the text and called for further action by governments.

"Governments reluctantly accepted scientific findings" that a 25-40 percent cut in emissions was needed by 2020, the environmental protection agency WWF said in a statement.

"We think the text is a little wobbly... but I think the message is clear and the world recognises that... these reductions are necessary," WWF representative Hans Verolme told journalists.

Stephanie Tunmore of Greenpeace commented that Friday's agreement was "a sign that climate negotiations are moving forward."

"The road to Bali is clear but it's time to switch gears," another Greenpeace participant, Red Constantino, also told journalists, adding that talks could not continue at the same slow pace as they have until now.

Pat Finnegan of the Irish non-governmental organisation GRIAN meanwhile told AFP that the final report was a "convoluted document" that was "nothing like strong or adequate enough" and spoke of "fudge" in the language.

NGOs also criticised moves by certain governments to block any agreement on Friday.

"Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea and Switzerland... were the countries hindering progress in Vienna," the WWF said.

But UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer was positive at the end of the conference.

The Vienna meeting "has put the Bali conference in the starting blocks... in Bali, Indonesia must take us across the finishing line," he told a closing press conference.

A total of 175 of the 191 UNFCCC's members are parties to the Kyoto Protocol, which runs out at the end of 2012.

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