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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon delivers a speech at the UN Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen - Source: Reuters -
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Danish conference hosts
warned ministers to compromise at deadlocked global talks to
salvage agreement on a new UN climate pact.
Ministers and negotiators from 193 countries struggled to make
progress on core issues including emissions cuts and climate
finance in the Copenhagen talks, three days before world leaders
are meant to seal an accord.
"Three years of effort have come down to three days of action," Ban
said.
"Let us not falter in the home stretch."
The UN process is meant to lead to a legally binding treaty next
year.
"In these very hours we are balancing between success and failure,"
said Danish President of the two-week meeting, Connie Hedegaard, at
the opening of the high-level phase of the talks.
Organisers of the talks said environment ministers would work
deep into night on Tuesday to narrow wide differences, saying the
bulk of the work must be complete before more than 120 leaders
formally joined the meeting on Thursday.
After a suspension of several hours the previous day, talks were
stalled on Tuesday over disputes about the level of emissions cuts
by rich countries and a long-term global target to curb a rise in
global temperatures which could trigger rising sea levels, floods
and drought.
"The time for delay and blame is over," said Ban, who added he was
reasonably optimistic of a deal.
Denmark's Hedegaard told ministers - "You must compromise,
commit."
Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, told reporters he
did not expect any change in US carbon cutting targets during the
talks.
The European Union has said it will only sharpen its goals if
the United States moves first.
Major US businesses including Duke Energy, Microsoft and Dow
Chemical called for tough US emissions cuts which would mobilise a
shift to a greener economy.
"We need long and short-term targets," said Wulf Bernotat, chief
executive of German utility E.ON.
48 hours
Ban described the negotiations as among the most complex and
ambitious ever to be undertaken by the world community.
The talks have stumbled over a long-running rich-poor rift on
sharing the burden of fighting climate change.
South African Environment Minister Buyelwa Sonjica, speaking for
the BASIC group of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, said rich
nation pledges for emissions cuts were "less than ambitious and ...
inconsistent with the science."
The talks have not yet decided whether to extend the present Kyoto
Protocol or replace it.
Kyoto only binds the emissions of rich countries.
A senior US official told reporters the talks were in a state of
high anxiety right now on the issue.
And developing nations want the industrialised world to pay poorer
countries to prepare for and slow climate change.
Japan would offer $US10 billion in aid over three years to 2012 to
help developing countries fight global warming, including steps to
protect biodiversity, a Japanese newspaper said.
The European Union has offered a similar sum.
An environmental source close to the US delegation said that the
United States planned to ramp up its contribution from about $US1
billion in 2010 to $US2 billion in 2011 and 2012.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in Paris that he hoped US
President Barack Obama supported aid for developing countries.
"President Obama often speaks about his links with Africa, it is
time to show it," he said.
Former US Vice-President Al Gore urged countries to wrap up a full
legal climate treaty by July 2010.
Describing runaway melt of the Earth's ice, rising tree mortality
and prospects of severe water scarcities, Gore told a UN audience:
"In the face of effects like these, clear evidence that only
reckless fools would ignore, I feel a sense of frustration" at the
lack of agreement so far.
Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned on the
sidelines of the climate conference: "Crop failure may lead to
rebellions which eventually could fuel radical movements, extremism
and terrorism."
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