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Wednesday, December 16th, 2009 | Posted by Editor - Blog News Service

U.N. Climate Chief: Next 24 Hours ‘Are Absolutely Crucial’

UN Climate Conference Yvo Boer

UN Climate Conference Yvo Boer

By ALESSANDRO TORELLO and SELINA WILLIAMS – Wall Street Journal

COPENHAGEN — The top United Nations climate negotiator said Wednesday the next 24 hours are crucial to the success or failure of the U.N. climate summit here, amid signs that talks among major nations are at an impasse.

“I still believe it’s possible to reach real success, but I must say that in that context the next 24 hours are absolutely crucial” for coming up with a new agreement on how to limit global warming, Yvo de Boer said late on the ninth day of negotiations.

Mr. de Boer said the chairman of the conference, Denmark’s Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen, was holding consultations with different regional representatives to see how best to move forward in the talks, which were heading into a deadlock.

Connie Hedegaard, the president of the U.N. conference on climate change resigned Wednesday to leave the place to Mr. Rasmussen. Ms. Hedegaard told a plenary meeting of the conference this morning there was still was no consensus on many key issues in the discussions.

Officials expressed concern that the conference will have little to show when world leaders are supposed to convene to ratify a final outcome on Friday.

“We have no more time to lose,” European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said in a press conference Wednesday, as he joined the talks.

More than 100 world leaders are heading to Copenhagen for the final stretch of the talks, supposed to end Friday.

Disputes between developing countries and industrialized nations broke out once more in the plenary session of the conference. Among the issues in dispute are who should pay for the fight to climate change in developing countries, and how rich nations should commit to steep CO2 emissions’ cuts.

Developing countries held to their demand that the final deal effectively update the existing Kyoto Protocol, which imposes obligations to reduce CO2 emissions only on rich countries–but not the U.S.

The European Union wants one single and more comprehensive document, while the U.S. wants some large emerging economies, such as China, to also be bound to some greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Talks on the mechanism to provide subsidies for poor nations to adopt clean energy technology, take steps to curb their emissions and adapt to the effects of global warming also remained stalled.

China Wednesday appeared to give some ground on the issue of whether it is entitled to aid from rich nations to subsidize its efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. China’s assistant minister of finance said China is willing to allow poorer developing nations take priority in receiving rich nations’ funding to combat climate change.

But Zhu Guangyao told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview that China is sticking to its demand that rich nations provide 0.5-1% of their annual gross domestic product as funding to help developing nations for the period to 2020 and beyond. He didn’t provide information on whether Beijing would insist on some of the funding going to China.

Mr. Zhu reiterated China’s strong opposition to efforts by some nations to impose carbon tariffs to protect their industries.

“Some nations raised the carbon tariff issue in the (Copenhagen) negotiations, and we are strongly against it,” he said. Such tariffs are a form of trade protectionism which would ultimately hurt the nations that impose them, he said.

The U.S. has rejected the proposal that rich nations contribute up to 1% of GDP as “untethered from reality.”

Ms. Hedegaard’s resignation came after she chaired a plenary meeting of the conference Wednesday morning, and said that there still was no consensus on many key issues in the negotiations to come up with a new agreement to fight global warming.

The conference was again surrounded by raucous demonstrations. Police used pepper spray and batons to subdue protesters who tried to disrupt the conference. (See related article.)

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday he was under no illusions about how difficult climate negotiations in Copenhagen are, but is upbeat about reaching a deal.

Mr. Brown, who came a day early to Copenhagen to try to help break a deadlock in the talks, said there had been movement behind the scenes, a Downing Street spokesman said.

Mr. Brown also said he saw a way through, although he didn’t elaborate what that was.

Mr. Brown met in Copenhagen with U.S. Sen. John Kerry, co-author of a key climate bill in the Senate. Mr. Brown also met with leaders of island states, who are already being hit by climate change, and forestry states.

Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez held court in Copenhagen Wednesday, criticizing the polluting ways of wealthy nations, like the U.S.

“The rich are destroying the world,” he told delegates. Venezuela’s economy depends heavily on comparatively dirty heavy oil, much of which it sells to the United States.

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