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Fin on Thursday, December 17, 2009 7:30:59 AM
COPENHAGEN &<51; With just two days remaining in historic and contentious climate talks here, China signaled overnight that it sees virtually no possibility that the nearly 200 nations gathered would find agreement by Friday.
A participant in the talks said that China would agree only to a brief political declaration that left unresolved virtually all the major issues.
The conference has deadlocked over emissions cuts by, and financing for, developing nations, including China, who say they will bear the brunt of a planetary problem they did little to create. Leaders had hoped to conclude an interim agreement on the major issues that would have &S220;immediate operational effect.&S221; The Chinese, it appears, are not willing to go that far at this meeting.
Whether the Chinese position represents political brinkmanship as senior ministers and heads of state begin arriving in Copenhagen for the final 48 hours of negotiations, or a genuine signal that Chinese officials are not inclined to settle the wide differences separating it and developed nations, was unclear on Thursday morning.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who arrived in Copenhagen overnight, announced on Thursday that the United States would participate in a $100 billion fund to help poor and vulnerable nations adapt to climate change and build more energy efficient economies. She cautioned, however, that American participation in the fund was contingent on reaching a firm agreement this week.
It was the first time the Obama administration had made a commitment to a medium-term financing effort and a clear effort to unblock a negotiation that has been stalled. She said the money would be a mix of public and private funds, including &S220;alternative sources of finance,&S221; which she did not specify.
Nor did she say what the American share of the fund would be, although typically in such multilateral financial efforts the United States contributes about 20 percent. She said the money should chiefly flow to the poorest and most vulnerable nations and should contain a sizeable fund to slow deforestation, which contributes to carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
The $100 billion figure is in line with pledges from Britain and the European Union, although at the low end.
&S220;A hundred billion can have tangible effects,&S221; Mrs. Clinton said. &S220;We actually think $100 billion is appropriate, usable and will be effective.&S221;
The world&S217;s two richest blocs, the European Union and the United States, have been slow to put pledges on the table for long-term financing, which under most estimates would require them to pay hundreds of billions of dollars each year by 2020. Last Friday, European Union leaders agreed on short-term financing totaling $10.5 billion over the next three years to help poor countries begin tackling the effects of global warming. But the bloc has so far failed to agree how much they would give in long-term financing. E.U. experts have recommended that fund should total about $150 billion annually by the end of the next decade.
President Obama is to arrive on Friday, joining some100 other heads of state who plan to come to Copenhagen to put a high-level stamp on whatever document might arise from the meeting.
But with the clock ticking, continued bickering among delegations would seem to be making the likelihood of a significant breakthrough increasingly slim.
&S220;I still believe it&S217;s possible to reach a real success,&S221; said the United Nations climate secretary, Yvo de Boer, at a press conference Wednesday night. &S220;But I must say that in that context, the next 24 hours are absolutely crucial and need to be used productively.&S221;
The continued deadlock is due in large measure to delays and diversions created by a group of poor and emerging nations intent on making their dissatisfaction clear. The Group of 77, as it is called, has raised repeated objections to what its members see as the economic and environmental tyranny of the industrial world, often in florid language.
&S220;The rich are destroying the planet,&S221; said Hugo Ch&>25;vez, the socialist president of Venezuela, on Wednesday. &S220;Perhaps they think they&S217;re going off to another one after they&S217;ve destroyed this one.&S221;
On Monday, African nations briefly brought the climate talks to a standstill. China, by far the largest economic power in the group, has dragged its feet throughout the week by raising one technical objection after another to the basic negotiating text infra red heaters. And on Wednesday night, the group refused to take part in negotiations that conference organizers had hoped would produce a definitive negotiating text by Thursday morning. Instead, many Group of 77 leaders spent the day hurling accusations at wealthier countries.
President Obama and other world leaders have said that the Copenhagen meetings are unlikely to produce a binding treaty; some sort of interim political agreement is far more likely, they said. But few appreciated the depth of anger in the developing world and the height of grandstanding that would consume so much of the conference&S217;s time. Now it is hard to find someone who confidently predicts even that much success.
The Group of 77 is a group in name only. Made up of 130 countries, it represents tiny island nations like Vanuatu and advanced middle-income states like Argentina. Its nominal leader is Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, a Sudanese diplomat who speaks on behalf of the group and who led a walkout on Monday, saying the developed nations&S217; offer of $10 billion in &S220;quick-start&S221; financing after completion of a deal here was wholly inadequate.
Many developing nations have united under the group&S217;s auspices because they can take advantage of the far greater negotiating power and resources of countries like China and Brazil. Many small countries have neither a big enough delegation nor the organizational structure to negotiate effectively on their own.
China has been a natural godfather to many of the Group of 77 countries because its government has extensive investments in Africa and Latin America, often involving lucrative deals to bring oil and minerals home.
The coalition is united on a few central issues. They include making sure that industrialized countries keep the emissions reductions pledges they made as part of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and that the Copenhagen conference produces enough money for poorer countries to adapt to climate change, said Mar&>37;a Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuador&S217;s minister of cultural and ecological patrimony.
But the group is neither a tight negotiating unit, nor particularly well organized. While larger countries like Brazil and China have well-appointed headquarters in one part of the Bella Center, where the negotiations are being held, the Group of 77 office itself is made up of two spartan rooms equipped with two computers, where some delegates from the poorest African nations sat Wednesday morning drinking soda and nibbling biscuits.
&S220;The G-77 is an incredibly diverse group,&S221; said Michael A. Levi, a climate change specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations who is attending the Copenhagen meeting. &S220;Its richest countries are 50 times as wealthy on a per-capita basis as its poorest ones. All of this makes a common yet constructive position very difficult. The easiest thing to agree on is to obstruct action.&S221;
The cost of such obstruction is growing higher by the day. On Thursday and Friday, ministers and heads of government are expected to fashion a complex political agreement encompassing a host of issues that have divided them for years. Seldom, if ever, have national leaders engaged in negotiations as complex &<51; and as poorly prepared &<51; as these.
The strain is showing both inside the Bella Center and outside. On Wednesday, hundreds of demonstrators tried to storm the hall, but were pushed back by truncheon-wielding riot police officers who made 260 arrests. Inside, numerous groups staged demonstrations, sit-ins and noisy disruptions of public sessions.
Mr. de Boer, the United Nations official in charge of the conference, said that he was concerned about the safety of the arriving leaders and the rest of the participants. &S220;The incidents that have taken place today inside the conference center test my courage to continue in this way,&S221; he said, suggesting he would sharply limit access to the hall for the final two days.
In recent days, various officials have given gloomy assessments of the talks, including Connie Hedegaard, the former Danish environment minister who stepped down on Wednesday as president of the conference, yielding the chair to the Danish prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen. Officials said the turnover was dictated by protocol because the conference president shares a stage with fellow heads of government.
Elisabeth Rosenthal contributed reporting.
Hopes Are Fading for Climate Accord at Copenhagen