World leaders in
last-minute climate talks
The
UN climate talks were in serious disarray Friday, prompting
President Barack Obama to upend his schedule and hold close-door
talks with 19 other world leaders to work out a last-minute
agreement on fighting global warming.
Associated Press - 18/12/2009 - Delegates earlier blamed
both the US and China for the lack of a political agreement
that Obama, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and more than 110
other world leaders are supposed to sign within hours.
But
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking after the unscheduled
meeting with Obama and the other leaders, said progress
in the climate talks was being held back by China.
Obama
spokesman Robert Gibbs said the US president met with world
leaders from China and Russia, both seen as key participants
in the climate talks, as well as the heads of state from
wealthy nations like Australia, the United Kingdom, France
and Germany and those from developing countries like Ethiopia,
Bangladesh and Colombia.
"Most
of the leaders are still working out to produce a meaningful
agreement to be adopted," Japanese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Kazuo Kodama said.
The
lack of a deal caused leaders to throw out the planned timetable
for the final day of the two-week UN climate conference,
with their informal talks delaying the opening of the regular
session.
Broad
disputes continued behind closed doors between wealthy nations
and developing ones, delegates said — the divide that
from the start has dogged the two-week UN climate conference,
which aimed to reach agreements on deeper reductions in
emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global
warming.
No
agreed text had emerged as presidents and premiers were
gathering at a Copenhagen convention hall, said Swedish
Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren.
"It
is now up to world leaders to decide," he said, suggesting
they would be pressed to make last-minute decisions on the
thrust of the climate declaration.
Carlgren,
negotiating on behalf of the 27-nation European Union, blamed
the morning's impasse on the Chinese for "blocking
again and again," and on the U.S. for coming too late
with an improved offer, a long-range climate aid program
announced Thursday by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton.
A
leading African delegate, meanwhile, complained bitterly
about the proposed declaration. "It's weak. There's
nothing ambitious in this text," Lumumba Di-Aping of
Sudan, a leader of the developing nations bloc, said Friday.
Delegates
filtering out of the predawn discussions Friday sounded
disappointed.
"It's
a political statement, but it isn't a lot," said Chinese
delegate Li Junhua.
"It
would be a major disappointment. A political declaration
would not guarantee our survival," said Selwin Hart,
a delegate from Barbados speaking for the Alliance of Small
Island States, many of which are threatened by seas rising
form global warming.
World
leaders handed off the draft text of about three pages at
about 3 a.m. local time to their ministers and they continued
to work on it through the night. But by 5 a.m., negotiators
from Mexico and the G-77 plus China said they were nowhere
near agreement on the final document.
Da UNFCCC
