Environment ministers talk up Copenhagen chances

Environment ministers yesterday talked up the chances of a meaningful political deal being agreed in Copenhagen next month, following two days of informal talks in the Danish capital.

The meeting, which coincided with encouraging signals from US president Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao that they would table emission targets at the Copenhagen Summit, struck a more conciliatory tone than recent negotiations with senior officials maintaining they are confident a strong political deal can be reached.

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate and energy minister who will chair the December summit, told reporters the two days of talks had been constructive. " My feeling is that it looks better today than when we started meeting," she said, adding that recent commitments from nations such as the United States, Brazil, South Korea, Indonesia, Mexico and Norway indicated that the stalled negotiations were again showing signs of progress.

She added that the new political agreement would aim to deliver clear emission targets for industrialised countries, action plans for emerging economies, a consensus on climate funding mechanisms and a concrete deadline as early as possible in the New Year for the legal agreement to be finalised.

Given the most recent official round of talks in Barcelona was marred by a boycott from African delegates frustrated at the failure of rich nations to commit to sufficiently ambitious emission targets, any talk of progress is likely to be welcomed.

However, the UN's top climate change official, Yvo de Boer, counselled that "more movement" was needed from rich nations for a deal to be reached. " Industrialised countries must raise their targets and financial commitments further," he told reporters. "I look to the United States for a numerical mid-term target and a clear commitment on finance."

Meanwhile, in a clear indication of the tensions still bubbling beneath the surface of the negotiations, the chair of the European Parliament's Copenhagen delegation, Jo Leinen, branded the US and China "the biggest failures for climate protection".

"It would be a severe setback for world climate protection efforts if the US and China, as the two biggest polluters of the Earth's atmosphere, do not commit to specific greenhouse gas reduction goals, but instead, as was the case two years ago in Bali, are prepared only to make a political declaration on climate protection in some distant future," he said. "If the two superpowers do not take sufficient responsibility for making cuts, they will unfortunately find " imitators and copycats" among other countries with high levels of CO2 emissions. "