UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The UN secretary-general yesterday urged all countries to formally sign on to the Copenhagen accord to start tackling climate change and step up work towards a legally binding treaty in 2010.

Ban Ki-moon also urged richer nations to contribute to a multi-billion dollar fund to help poorer countries cope with global warming which will become operational in January.

The UN chief told reporters he recognised that the accord reached in Copenhagen early Saturday after two weeks of tough negotiations, which is not legally binding, didn’t go as far as many hoped.

Nonetheless, he called the conference “a success” and said “it marks a significant step forward” towards a new treaty which would mandate significant cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

The agreement brokered by President Barack Obama with China and others urges deeper emissions cuts, and asks countries to keep in “view” scientists’ warnings that temperatures should not rise more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.

“Without the commitments in the Copenhagen accord, we could be facing the real prospect of temperature rises of up to 6 degrees Celsius,” Ban said.

The secretary-general said scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will produce a new report in 2014 on the impact of global warming, and governments have agreed to review the 2 degree Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) target in 2015 to take account of new scientific evidence. Many small islands say they could be inundated if temperatures rise to that level and want a target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The 194 states attending the UN conference agreed by consensus on a compromise to “take note” of the accord, instead of formally approving it.

Robert Orr, the UN policy coordination chief, said the document will shortly be opened for signatures from all countries.

“I urge all governments to formally sign on to the Copenhagen accord by registering their support” through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Ban said.

“The faster we have all the signatures, the more momentum we can give it,” he said.

Orr said “there is a very broad base of support” for the accord, citing statements at the final session backing the agreement from the African Union, the European Union, the world’s poorest nations and small island developing countries.

“If this document takes on the kind of support that was indicated in the final plenary, then you have a real centre of gravity for the treaty negotiations throughout 2010,” Orr told a news conference.

Ban said the UN will seek to streamline the negotiating process, which was strongly criticised, ahead of the next UN climate conference in Mexico City in 2010.

He said he had already discussed ways to improve negotiations with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and is willing to discuss the issue with other world leaders, opinion makers, and civic leaders.

Ban said he will encourage world leaders “to directly engage in achieving a global legally binding climate change treaty in 2010.”

The UN chief urged countries to contribute “to ensure that the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund becomes fully operational as soon as possible.”

Under the accord, developed countries will finance a $10 billion-a-year, three-year program starting in 2010 to fund developing nations’ projects to deal with drought, floods and other impacts of climate change, and to develop clean energy. It also set a “goal” of mobilizing $100 billion-a-year by 2020 for the same purposes.

Ban urged countries to contribute “to ensure that the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund becomes fully operational as soon as possible”.

To critics of the accord who say nothing is binding, Orr said the agreements on money to help poorer countries and for developing countries to report every two years on their voluntary actions to reduce emissions were “pretty serious breakthroughs”.

“The proof will only be in the pudding when you see in the coming weeks and months, do the governments who say they’re providing funding provide it — and do the governments that say they’re going to do certain things do it,” he said.

“What I learned from this Copenhagen process,” Ban said, “is that … we were able to see much heightened political will and there was a common purpose, a common need to act on this. However, the national positions, they are not yet united.”

Ban said the U.N. must now help translate this political will “into action.”

“That will be quite a big challenge for the United Nations and for world leaders, all together,” he said.