The FINANCIAL — The world's leaders will be arriving in the Danish capital over the next few days for the final round of negotiations, ABC News reports.
More than 90 ministers had met informally on December 13, on their day off from official negotiations between 190 nations, to try to break an impasse between rich and poor over who is responsible for emissions cuts, how deep they should be, and who should pay, according to Reuters. There was a positive atmosphere, but the talks apparently achieved little beyond a consensus that time is running out.
"Everyone realizes the urgency of what we are undertaking but we need to move faster," said British Energy Minister Ed Miliband, as the same source reports. Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said he had not expected solutions on Sunday. "We have defined to each other where our absolute limits are," he told reporters. Countries like China and India say the industrialized world must make bigger cuts in emissions and help poor nations to fund a shift to greener growth and adapt to a warmer world. Richer countries say the developing world's carbon emissions are growing so fast it must sign up for curbs in emissions to prevent dangerous levels of warming.
A draft agreement distributed last week to the 192-nation conference set no firm figures on financing or on cutting greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, AP informs. It said all countries together should reduce emissions by 50 percent to 95 percent by 2050, and rich countries should cut emissions by 25 to 40 percent by 2020, in both cases using 1990 as the baseline year.
So far, industrial nations' pledges to cut emissions have amounted to far less than the minimum, according to the same source. What negotiators and climate scientists do agree on is that global warming will lead to dramatic changes that mean more widespread drought, greater flooding along coastlines, stronger storms and the extinction of some species.
"There are still issues of substance and process to be overcome in the coming days," Miliband told a press conference, AFP wrote. "Leaders are practically on their way," said Miliband, who is secretary of state for energy and climate change. "Leaders always have a very important role in this. But frankly it's also up to negotiators and ministers not leave everything up to the leaders, but to get our act together."
Delegates hope for a deal on Friday that will ensure temperatures do not rise by more than 2C, and that hundreds of billions of pounds is pledged to help poor countries adapt to climate change, Guardian reports. But tonight it appeared that many did not want to risk being pressured into signing an agreement they believe would be against their national interests.
"The industrialised countries want to hammer out a large part of the deal on the last day, when the heads of state arrive," one senior African negotiator told the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. "It's a ploy to slip through provisions that are not amenable to developing country efforts. It's playing dirty." One added: "It is as serious a situation as it ever has been. It is more than probable many heads of state will not come if the negotiations are not complete. Why should a head of state come to sign an agreement that is basically a non-agreement?"
As talks continued Monday at the Bella Center, throngs of newly arrived delegates, journalists and climate activists jammed the security and accreditation lines, forcing police to shut down the subway stop at the cavernous conference hall, AP reports.
Meanwhile, police were on the lookout for new protests in the city center, where more than 1,200 people were detained this weekend. Almost all of them were released after questioning. About a dozen were arraigned on preliminary charges of assaulting police officers or carrying box-cutters or other sharp objects, according to the same source. There were sporadic reports of vandalism across the city overnight Monday.
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