POZNAN, Poland -- With developing countries offering more emission cuts than anticipated and richer nations in many cases offering fewer, global climate negotiators yesterday wrapped up lackluster talks that U.N. officials said nonetheless kept the world on the path toward a new treaty by next December.

In the final day of talks, negotiators agreed on principles of financing for a fund to help the world's poorest and most vulnerable nations cope with the effects of climate change. Earlier, they approved a mechanism to incorporate forest protection into efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But basic questions over an equitable balance of emissions cuts between richer and poorer nations for the most part remained unresolved, particularly because many richer nations balked at making firm or ambitious promises to cut emissions in the coming decade.

"We got the bare minimum of what we needed from the talks," said Jennifer Haverkamp, international climate policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund. Coming out of Poznan, "there's a lot to do and less than a year to do it."

Negotiations have been hampered by growing worries in Europe, long the world leader in pushing a climate deal, about the costs of cutting emissions as its industries come under pressure during a spreading global recession.

Despite those worries, however, Europe managed to sign its own climate agreement yesterday, committing the region to a 20 percent cut in emissions by 2020 as well as a doubling of use of renewable energy and a 20 percent boost in energy efficiency over the same period.

President-elect Barack Obama's promise to make combating climate change a priority for his administration has produced as much frustration as enthusiasm at Poznan, simply because his negotiators are not yet at the table, which has led other countries to delay decisions on cuts until seeing a new U.S. proposal.

Negotiators "want to be sure they're not committing their economies and populations to some kind of quixotic emissions reductions regime which costs them much more than their neighbors and exports competitors," said Henry Derwent, president of the International Emissions Trading Association and a former British climate negotiator.

One of the brightest spots of the talks was a series of vows by major developing countries to cut their own greenhouse gases, in recognition of the global scope of the problem and in line with promises made at talks last December in Bali.

Brazil announced a new commitment to cut deforestation by 70 percent by 2017, a move that would effectively cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions by more than a third. South Africa has promised to cut emissions growth by 2020 and begin reductions by 2030, and Mexico has said it will cut its emissions, measured at 2002 levels, by half by 2050.

Many of those countries expressed frustration that richer countries have offered ambitious cuts for the most part only by 2050.