Danish police fired pepper spray outside the U.N. climate conference on Wednesday, as disputes inside left major issues hanging just two days before world leaders hope to sign a historic agreement to fight global warming.
Hundreds of protesters assembled outside the 193-nation conference, the latest action in days of demonstrations to demand “climate justice” — firm action to combat global warming. Police said 230 protesters were detained, according to the Associated Press.
Inside the Bella Center convention hall, negotiators dealing with core issues debated until just before dawn without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries’ efforts to cope with coming climate change, key elements of any deal.
“I regret to report we have been unable to reach agreement,” John Ashe of Antigua, chairman of one negotiating group, reported to the full 193-nation conference later Wednesday morning.
In those all-night talks, the American delegation apparently objected to a proposed text it felt might bind the United States prematurely to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, before the U.S. Congress acts on the required legislation. U.S. envoys insisted, for example, on replacing the word “shall” with the conditional “should.”
Hundreds of protesters marched Wednesday on the suburban Bella Center, where lines of Danish riot police waited in protective cordons. Some demonstrators said they wanted to take over the global conference and turn it into a “people’s assembly,” and as they approached police lines they were hit with pepper spray.
After nine days of largely unproductive talks, the lower-level delegates were wrapping up the first phase of the two-week conference and handing off the disputes to environment ministers in a critical second phase.
The lack of progress disheartened many, including small island states threatened by the rising seas of a global temperature rise.
“We are extremely disappointed,” Ian Fry of the Pacific nation of Tuvalu declared on the conference floor. “I have the feeling of dread we are on the Titanic and sinking fast. It’s time to launch the lifeboats.”
Others differed. “Obviously there are things we are concerned about, but that is what we have to discuss,” Sergio Barbosa Serra, Brazil’s climate ambassador, told The Associated Press. “I would like to think we can get a deal, a good and fair deal.”
Ministers and negotiators from 193 countries struggled to make progress on core issues including emissions cuts and climate finance in the Copenhagen talks, “Three years of effort have come down to three days of action,” U. N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said. “Let us not falter in the home stretch.”
The U.N. process is meant to lead to a legally binding treaty next year.
“In these very hours we are balancing between success and failure," said Danish president of the two-week meeting, Connie Hedegaard, at the opening of the high-level phase of the talks on Tuesday. Organizers of the talks said the bulk of the work must be complete before more than 120 leaders formally joined the meeting on Thursday.
After a suspension of several hours the previous day, talks were stalled on Tuesday over disputes about the level of emissions cuts by rich countries and a long-term global target to curb a rise in global temperatures which could trigger rising sea levels, floods and drought.
Todd Stern, U.S. special envoy for climate change, told reporters he did not expect any change in U.S. carbon cutting targets during the talks. The European Union has said it will only sharpen its goals if the United States moves first.
Major U.S. businesses including Duke Energy, Microsoft and Dow Chemical called for tough U.S. emissions cuts that would mobilize a shift to a greener economy.
The talks have not yet decided whether to extend the present Kyoto Protocol or replace it. Kyoto only binds the emissions of rich countries. A senior U.S. official told reporters the talks were “in a state of high anxiety right now” on the issue.
Former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore urged countries to wrap up a full legal climate treaty by July 2010.
Describing “runaway melt” of the Earth’s ice, rising tree mortality and prospects of severe water scarcities, Gore told a U.N. audience: “In the face of effects like these, clear evidence that only reckless fools would ignore, I feel a sense of frustration” at the lack of agreement so far.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen warned on the sidelines of the climate conference: “Crop failure may lead to rebellions which eventually could fuel radical movements, extremism and terrorism.”
Watch the NCR Ecology channel and the NCR Today group blog for updates on the Copenhagen climate conference.
[Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer. His email is rheffern@ncronline.org]
