UN negotiations on a new climate deal entered a second week this morning as pressure mounted on world leaders to come up with a political agreement that heads of state and government can sign up to.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley, who flew in last night to represent Ireland in advance of the arrival of Taoiseach Brian Cowen in Copenhagen on Thursday, said political leaders "would be judged by future generations on the outcome of the meeting".
Ireland last week announced €100 million for the EU's "fast start" programme to fund climate change relief and prevention work in poorer and developing countries. The Government has yet to confirm whether or not this would come from its existing overseas aid budget but Mr Gormley said his "personal position" was that it should be "100 per cent" additional funding.
This morning Green Party's Eamon Ryan said while he feels some type of agreement can be reached it may not go far enough.
Speaking to RTÉ radio Mr Ryan said he felt there would be an agreement on "financing some of the adaptation to climate change" and "new common international rules around tackling climate change". However, he added "I'm sceptical at the moment that there will be an agreement on the more fundamental issues as to how much costs are made by each sector and I think that it's going to be likely that it will go on from Copenhagen."
On Saturday tens of thousands of people marched from the centre of Copenhagen to the conference venue, with similar protests in many other cities.
Danish climate minister Connie Hedegaard, who is president of the conference, said "considerable progress" had been made during its first week, and the demonstrations had "contributed to making the political price for not delivering in Copenhagen so high".
Although the march was largely peaceful, Danish riot police made nearly 1,000 arrests - mainly as a preventative measure - after "kettling" members of militant groups, known as Black Blocs, when masked youths attacked the foreign ministry.
Former president Mary Robinson, who addressed a huge rally outside the Bella convention centre, said what was going to be decided there this week was "the future of the world" and it was "vital" that a fair, balanced agreement was reached.
"It's not like a trade conference where if there isn't an agreement that may or may not be a serious issue. But we can't afford to fail here because we're running out of time," she said in a radio interview.
US climate envoy Todd Stern said the US "is not going to do a deal without major developing countries stepping up". But he added: "There's a deal to be done here . . . I think that we can get there with China."
Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren, speaking for the EU in the plenary session on Saturday, said there had been "a growing understanding that there must be commitments to actions by emerging economies as well" and that any such commitments to curb emissions "must be binding".
Dr Thomas Stocker, a leading member of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said the emissions cuts tabled so far were "clearly not enough" to avert catastrophic climate change.