Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, has told nations involved in climate change talks they must “stop pointing fingers” and increase their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
His warning came as world leaders began gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the final stretch of the two-week summit, which aims to agree a draft deal to tackle climate change.
“Time is running out ... There is no time for posturing or blaming,” the UN chief told the Associated Press news agency before heading to the Danish capital on Tuesday.
“If everything is left to leaders to resolve at the last minute, we risk having a weak deal or no deal at all. And this would be a failure of potentially catastrophic consequence.”
His comments also come a day after a number of developing countries temporarily boycotted talks, demanding deeper emission cuts by industrial nations be brought to the forefront of discussions.
Negotiations resumed, but deep divisions remain between rich and poor countries over emissions targets and financing for developing countries to deal with global warming.
What happens in the next 48 hours amongst the ministerial delegations is crucial. On one hand, there are big, industrial, rich countries that stand to lose an enormous amount in terms of the emission cuts they will have to make that will affect their economies and also the money contributions that are being looked for from them.
On the other hand, there are poorer countries and some of them are looking at the destruction of their entire way of life. Some nations will simply sink into the sea. The most significant disagreement on Tuesday appeared to be between the United States and China, the world’s two biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.
China and other developing countries have been resisting US-led attempts to make their cuts in emissions growth binding, instead of voluntary, and open to international scrutiny. “You can’t even begin to have an environmentally sound agreement without the adequate, significant participation of China,” Todd Stern, the US special climate envoy, said.
Beijing has accused developed countries, including the US, of trying to avoid their obligations to help poor nations fight climate change. Jiang Yu, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said that financial support for developing nations was “the key condition for the success of the Copenhagen conference”.
Organisers said that environment ministers would work deep into night on Tuesday to narrow differences, saying the bulk of the work must be complete before most world leaders arrive on Thursday.
“We have seen significant progress in a number of areas but we haven’t seen enough of it ... we are in a very important phase,” Yvo de Boer, the UN climate chief, said
However, Jairam Ramesh, India’s environment minister, told the Reuters news agency that the talks could stall on a number of issues.
“There could be breakdown on many issues. We still don’t have great clarity on how the next few days are going to evolve.”
More than 110 world leaders are expected at the climax of the talks, including Barack Obama, the US president, and Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister.
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, was among the first heads of state to arrive in the Danish capital on Tuesday, avoiding a travel ban imposed by Western nations.
Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, is due to arrive later in the day, two days earlier than expected in an attempt to help push the talks forward.
Leaders are aiming for a political agreement rather than a legally binding treaty, focusing on individual targets on emissions cuts and financing for developing countries.
Scientists say global warming will create rising sea levels, increasing drought, more extreme weather and the extinction of some species.
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