http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Economy/idUSTRE5842HG20090905?pa...

LONDON (Reuters) - G20 finance leaders vowed to clamp down on excessive pay and risk-taking that lie at the root of the financial crisis and said emergency economic measures should remain until the world economy has firmly recovered.

Their meeting in London on Saturday prepared the ground for G20 leaders' summit in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh on September 24-25.

But a year after the collapse of Lehman Bros, which brought the global financial system to its knees, they are struggling with the finer details of how to achieve major financial reform.

The following is a summary of how the London meeting will shape discussions in Pittsburgh.

ECONOMIC OUTLOOK

Although the economic outlook is much better than when the G20 last held a summit in April, finance ministers stressed in London they would keep economic life-support packages in place until a recovery is firmly secured, and that they should spend all the planned $5 trillion pledged in budgetary stimulus. This position is unlikely to change over the next three weeks.

BANKER PAY AND BONUSES French President Nicholas Sarkozy wants Pittsburgh to adopt a tax on high pay deals and a limit on bank bonuses. The London meeting threw the issue into the lap of the Financial Stability Board, asking it to report back to the Sept 24-25 leaders summit on whether a restrictions on pay and bonuses were feasible. The UK expressed skepticism.

BANK CAPITAL U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has proposed a new global accord to raise bank capital levels. He won support for far higher levels of core capital, known as Tier One, but there are still no exact agreed figures on the level of capital that will be required -- an issue that also was kicked to the FSB. Canada said capital levels will be left to individual countries.

Pittsburgh is not expected to clarify this. But concerns the United States was backing away from fully adopting the Basel II bank capital framework were put to rest when support for its implementation was affirmed in an attachment to the G20 communique.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND/WORLD BANK

The London meeting agreed that emerging nations should have a greater say in the running of the IMF and World Bank and they "look forward to substantial progress" on the issue in Pittsburgh. However, they came up with no agreement on a formula for achieving this, simply saying that they would stick to the existing schedule for completing reforms of March 2010 for the World Bank and January 2011 for the IMF.

The BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China said in London that they want a 7 percent shift in IMF quotas in favor of developing countries, which is more than the 5 percent that sources have told Reuters the United States is proposing.

CLIMATE CHANGE

The G20 communique said the need to combat climate change is "urgent" and they will work toward a successful outcome at the Copenhagen summit in December. While the cost of tackling climate change issues was on the agenda, participants said it got scant attention. Developing nations were reluctant to even discuss a deal, which suggests it may be hard to make progress at Pittsburgh. The BRIC statement said it should be addressed by within the United Nations framework.

July to seek to address excessive volatility in commodity prices but made no specific proposals suggesting the matter will not be a focus at Pittsburgh.

Progress is being made on this issue at national level with the U.S. in particular planning an increase in energy market oversight and restrictions on speculators.