US president Barack Obama said on Tuesday that climate talks in Copenhagen next month should fix a new deal which has "immediate operational effect", even if an original goal of a legally binding pact is out of reach.
Obama's remarks came after a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, who has pushed for a strong outcome at Copenhagen and refused to back a proposal to rekindle stalled negotiations by aiming for a scaled-down political deal.
Together, the United States and China account for 40% of world emissions, so their support is vital to any agreement. The international community had set a December deadline to agree to a framework to tackle global warming from 2013, but a rift has opened between developed and developing nations over who should cut emissions, by how much, and who should pay for it.
And some in China, and other developing nations, are suspicious that the push for a delay is a rich-nation ploy to defer facing costly responsibilities for decades of emissions.
Should there be a legally binding climate contract by this year, even if it means India has a relatively large responsibility of conservation when compared to the major emitters? Or should the deal be dragged out at the expense of the environment so that the responsibility can be fairly allotted?
Comments