Climate conference president resigns, Rasmussen to take over

Connie Hedegaard, the Danish president of the UN climate conference, resigned today as the head of the crucial talks to make way for Denmark prime minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen to give a political push to the deadlocked negotiations.

With leaders from over 100 countries set to converge in the Danish capital, which has been the centre of bitter-hectic negotiations for the past 10 days, Rasmussen took over as the chair.

Rasmussen will chair the final phase of negotiations that are supposed to stretch till Friday, with the last leg being attended by heads of state and government, including prime minister Manmohan Singh and US president Barack Obama.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), said Hedegaard who presided over the first 10 days of negotiation, will continue to lead the informal talks.

With a large number of heads of state set to participate in the talks, Hedegaard said it is appropriate for Rasmussen to be the chairman of the conference.

The negotiations at the crucial climate summit to chart out a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol have gone down to the wire, with delegates unable to iron out the differences between the developed and the developing nations.