TELEPHONE CALLS from US president Barack Obama to two key developing world leaders as well as several environment ministers working late into the night on Monday helped to get the UN climate summit back on track.
US climate envoy Todd Stern, who heads the US delegation here, revealed yesterday that Mr Obama had phoned Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, and Bangladesh’s prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in an effort to break the deadlock.
Danish climate and energy minister Connie Hedegaard, who is president of the UN conference, said a representative group of environment ministers had worked hard and “very late” to overcome obstacles in the negotiating process.
But time was running out, with up to 120 world leaders arriving tomorrow. “If everything has to be discussed in a plenary [session] with hundreds of people there, then we will not make it. Everybody knows that, everyone can see that,” she said.
With agreement elusive on most of the crunch issues, Ms Hedegaard said: “Now we must bring this to an end, or it could continue endlessly, getting more and more complicated with each conference we have. The priority is to get the political deal done.”
Last night, the high-level segment of the conference was officially opened, with stirring speeches by UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, Danish prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Britain’s Prince Charles, Nobel laureate Wangaro Maathai and Ms Hedegaard.
Earlier, she appeared at a press briefing alongside UN climate chief Yvo de Boer, with a lifebelt provided by the Tck Tck Tck campaign in front of the podium, and said, “We do only have 48 hours [so] ministers need to be extremely busy” in narrowing their differences.
Mr de Boer said there was “still an enormous amount of work to be covered” and he paid tribute to Ms Hedegaard for her leadership. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. What the minister has been doing is bringing 192 horses to water.”
Swedish environment minister Andreas Carlgren, speaking for the EU, said he was there to “cut a deal” and he was frustrated by the “blocking of the last few days” – although he was careful not to name the African Group, which had boycotted part of the talks.
“Yes, the situation is serious, but still we are expecting to reach a comprehensive and ambitious agreement,” he said. This would not happen, however, without the two countries responsible for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions – the US and China.
Asked if the EU would increase its unilateral commitment to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 to a mooted 30 per cent, Mr Carlgren said the higher target was “conditionalised” on the US and China responding – “otherwise we would sell ourselves too cheap”. He pointed out the EU accounts for barely more than a tenth of global emissions. If the US and China were not equally ambitious, “then the increase in China’s emissions alone would eat up all of our additional 10 per cent in two years. So it would be just in vain.”
Mr Stern met Chinese deputy foreign minister He Yafei yesterday for further talks, in the wake of Mr Yafei’s statement that China would not accept blame if the talks fail. “This is a trick played by the developed countries. They have to look at their own position ...” he said.
Afterwards, Mr Stern conceded China was “doing a great deal” to limit its emissions. “But if we’re going to have an international agreement, then they’ve got to be prepared to put what they’re doing into it,” he said, referring to China’s resistance to doing so.
Greenpeace’s Martin Kaiser complained about new restrictions on access to the highly congested conference: “If our leaders think they can close out criticism, they are mistaken. The time for playing poker with the fate of the planet in smoke-filled back rooms is over.”
Reuters adds: Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe arrived in Denmark yesterday to attend the Copenhagen talks.
Denmark’s prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, said Mr Mugabe was allowed to attend the Copenhagen climate conference because of rules that permit him to attend UN meetings, over-riding European Union and United States travel bans.
“That is the spirit of the UN – that the world needs a place where we can meet with those we basically don’t like. And I guess that is how you can characterise the person you’re asking about,” Mr Rasmussen said when questioned about Mr Mugabe.