Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed a new system of measuring greenhouse gas emissions in developing nations, a step aimed at helping countries such as China and India sign up to global efforts to tackle climate change after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

Merkel, on a five-day visit to China and Japan, proposed calculating the carbon-dioxide output of each country by its population instead of the absolute measurement used at present, according to the text of a speech to an economic symposium in Tokyo today.

``If we don't succeed in convincing everyone that we all have to make our own contribution to protecting the climate, then we will all suffer,'' Merkel said, adding that ``qualified targets'' according to country are necessary. That would allow developing nations to continue their pace of economic growth, she said.

Merkel, who has put tackling climate change at the center of Germany's presidency of the Group of Eight leading industrial nations, is pressing China and the U.S. to support a successor to the Kyoto treaty at a United Nations meeting in New York next month. She hands over the G-8 presidency to Japan in January.

China's President Hu Jintao, in a speech at the G-8 summit in Germany in June, asked member countries to allow developing nations ``to adopt measures in the light of their own conditions.''

The European Union, Japan and Canada pledged at the G-8 summit to halve carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050, while the U.S. and Russia only promised to take part in talks on a new treaty to combat global warming.

China's Exemption

China, the world's second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after the U.S., is a signatory to the 1997 UN-backed Kyoto treaty, though is exempted due to its developing-nation status.

The EU, which accounts for more than 15 percent of global CO2 emissions, is forecast to reduce that level within 10 to 15 years, Merkel said. Chinese and Indian emissions ``naturally'' are growing, she said.

``I can't imagine that the newly industrializing countries one day will be allowed to produce more carbon dioxide per head than the industrial countries, if we want to come to a fair agreement,'' Merkel said.

The Kyoto Protocol, the only international treaty that sets specific targets for emission reduction, binds 35 nations to curb carbon emissions by 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. The protocol didn't set targets for China and India.

Merkel is scheduled to visit Kyoto, where the treaty was signed, tomorrow, before returning to Berlin the following day.

To contact the reporter on this story: Claudia Rach in Berlin at crach1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: August 30, 2007 11:56 EDT