Danish delays as deadline looms

Environment

17.12.2009

by Lars Bevanger

Dossier index

Copenhagen 2009

Political will... or won´t
- Progress on EU climate funding deal
- Fear of commitment
- EU consensus on climate change crumbles
- Copenhagen in chaos?
- Danish delays as deadline looms
- Copenhagen climax?
Carbon conscience
- Europe's satellite leads climate change study
Copenhagen atmosphere - the Euranet blog
Warming up?

World leaders took centre stage at the Copenhagen climate talks today, but no notable progress was made in talks that seem to be faltering fast as the summit enters its final 24 hours.

The Danish hosts suggested an international agreement could be delayed until 2010. In an attempt to break the deadlock, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the US were ready to join other nations and raise €70 billion each year in funding to help poorer countries by 2020.

That money is still conditional on a wider deal being agreed here by the end of Friday. And developing countries remain at loggerheads with richer nations over the main issues. There is still no agreement on emissions cuts, and some developing nations are continuing to push for a limit in temperature rise of 1.5 degrees, while the draft documents still use the figure of 2 degrees.

"There is a great sense of failure"

Correspondent Willemien Groot talks to Euranet's Richard Walker about the progress - or lack of - being made in Copenhagen....

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Many are now putting their faith in the combined power of some 130 heads of state and governments to secure a deal by the end of Friday. Addressing the delegates, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that these few days in Copenhagen would be "blessed or blamed for generations to come".

Failure in Copenhagen would mean a deal being postponed until 2010 and the next UN climate summit in Mexico. This would be a great embarrassment for the Danish hosts, already under fire from NGOs who are slamming the summit as undemocratic. Thousands of accredited NGO representatives have been denied access to the summit venue as its capacity reached breaking point.

"Denmark could have done a much better job on the logistics. What we might see is a deal sealed behind closed doors and I fear that it will be a much weaker deal," said Lars Haltbrekken from Friends of the Earth, one of the NGOs denied access.

On the summit's final day no more than 90 NGO representatives will be allowed in. An alternative venue has been provided for the thousands left out in the cold.

There is some optimism still to be found. UK negotiator at the 1997 Kyoto talks and now rapporteur for the Council of Europe, John Prescott, told Euranet that Kyoto was rescued in the final hours, and that the same could happen here: "It was the last few hours that did it, the leaders intervened. We're in that twilight hour now at the moment, waiting for the leaders to get together. I'm hopeful we'll do like Kyoto, it'll get settled in the end."