COPENHAGEN – With fears of failure hinging over the UN summit, world leaders gathered in Copenhagen Friday, December 18, to nail down an agreement on fighting climate change.
"While the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now,” US President Barack Obama told the conference, reported the BBC News Online.
“It hangs in the balance."
Obama warned world leaders that failure to reach an agreement risks opening dangerous splits in the bid to tackle global warming.
"This is not a perfect agreement, and no country would get everything that it wants," he said.
"The question is whether we will move forward together, or split apart."
Delegates from 193 countries have been huddling together for two weeks in Copenhagen to reach a binding deal to reduce carbon emission that trap the Sun's heat, inflicting potentially catastrophic climate damage.
Though the delegates reached consensus on financing and temperature targets, they failed to agree on the timing and degree of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
"Whatever the outcome, it looks bad for us," said a member of the Maldives delegation, the Indian Ocean archipelago which fears being swallowed up by rising sea levels in a matter of decades.
Developing and rich countries have been divided on the greenhouse emission cuts.
Negotiators agreed on an initial draft which called for a two degree Celsius cap on global temperatures, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.
Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum effort to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several metres sea level rise, extinctions and crop failures.
Deadlock
Fear of failure has grown in Copenhagen, with often bitter disputes on emissions targets between top polluters China and the US.
"There's lots of tension," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"But despite everything things are moving a little."
He, however, said there was still work to be done on ways to verify commitments on environmental action and on assistance to poor nations to adapt to climate change.
"We have to unblock this. There are some points that can't be ignored."
China and the US are mainly blamed for the deadlock.
"Through the whole process the real problem has been on the one hand the United States, who are not able to deliver sufficiently (and) on the other hand China, and they delivered less,” said Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of EU president Sweden.
“And they have been really blocking again and again in this process, followed by a group of oil states. That's the real difference, the real confrontation behind this."
As the clock is ticking for the closure of the climate change talks, calls are growing for reaching an agreement.
"We stand before one of these rare and defining moments in history," said Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.
"We must chart the course of the future of the planet.
"We must seize this great opportunity today. The time to act is now."
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the leaders were "closer than ever to the world's first truly global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions".
"Just hours remain to close these final gaps."
"While the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now,” US President Barack Obama told the conference, reported the BBC News Online.
“It hangs in the balance."
Obama warned world leaders that failure to reach an agreement risks opening dangerous splits in the bid to tackle global warming.
"This is not a perfect agreement, and no country would get everything that it wants," he said.
"The question is whether we will move forward together, or split apart."
Delegates from 193 countries have been huddling together for two weeks in Copenhagen to reach a binding deal to reduce carbon emission that trap the Sun's heat, inflicting potentially catastrophic climate damage.
Though the delegates reached consensus on financing and temperature targets, they failed to agree on the timing and degree of cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
"Whatever the outcome, it looks bad for us," said a member of the Maldives delegation, the Indian Ocean archipelago which fears being swallowed up by rising sea levels in a matter of decades.
Developing and rich countries have been divided on the greenhouse emission cuts.
Negotiators agreed on an initial draft which called for a two degree Celsius cap on global temperatures, according to a draft document seen by Reuters.
Scientists say a 2 degrees limit is the minimum effort to avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change including several metres sea level rise, extinctions and crop failures.
Deadlock
Fear of failure has grown in Copenhagen, with often bitter disputes on emissions targets between top polluters China and the US.
"There's lots of tension," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"But despite everything things are moving a little."
He, however, said there was still work to be done on ways to verify commitments on environmental action and on assistance to poor nations to adapt to climate change.
"We have to unblock this. There are some points that can't be ignored."
China and the US are mainly blamed for the deadlock.
"Through the whole process the real problem has been on the one hand the United States, who are not able to deliver sufficiently (and) on the other hand China, and they delivered less,” said Andreas Carlgren, the environment minister of EU president Sweden.
“And they have been really blocking again and again in this process, followed by a group of oil states. That's the real difference, the real confrontation behind this."
As the clock is ticking for the closure of the climate change talks, calls are growing for reaching an agreement.
"We stand before one of these rare and defining moments in history," said Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen.
"We must chart the course of the future of the planet.
"We must seize this great opportunity today. The time to act is now."
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the leaders were "closer than ever to the world's first truly global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions".
"Just hours remain to close these final gaps."
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