Negotiators hammered out an initial draft U.N. climate pact overnight that calls for a 2 degree Celsius cap on global temperatures and billions in aid for poor nations, reports Reuters.
That goes further than the emissions cuts pledges made so far which, according to a leaked UN document, would still lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3 degrees Celsius.
Leaders from 26 rich and developing countries met into the early hours today, reports Reuters.
Later, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said: "We will meet again in the leaders' group at 8 o'clock (7 a.m. British time)."
That means they have resumed their discussions now. Copenhagen is seven hours behind Singapore.
The next press conference will be webcast 45 minutes from now. Visit the United Nations Climate Conference webcast site for more details. There are also Twitter updates here and here as well as a YouTube channel and a Facebook page.
In this video, Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said yesterday two contact groups had been set up — one to work on a text under the Kyoto Protocol, which covers industrialized countries' commitments, and a second group to work on a text that includes the U.S. and developing countries.
Reuters adds:
More than 120 world leaders will attend the final day of the climate talks in Copenhagen today.
The draft still under discussion proposed limiting a rise in global average temperatures to within two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, said sources who declined to be named.
Low-lying countries worried about rising seas want a tougher target of 1.5 degrees.
Two sources said the draft pledged rich countries to donate $100 billion annually by 2020 to poor nations to help them adapt their economies.
The text, which could still change, did not currently mention carbon emissions reduction targets for industrialised nations, one source said.
A major issue is trying convince China and India, the world's top and fourth-largest carbon emitters, to allow outside scrutiny of pledged steps to curb their emissions.
Rasmussen hopes the leaders' meeting will yield a draft document that all 193 nations attending the U.N. talks could agree will form the basis of an eventual legally binding climate deal to expand or replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. The United Nations hopes this will be sealed next year.
Kyoto's first phase ends in 2012.
The United States had helped the mood at the talks yesterday by promising to back a $100 billion a year fund for poor nations from 2020.
Such funds would be more than all current aid flows to poor nations, a U.N. official said, and in line with demands put forward for African nations. "That's very encouraging," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of the U.S. pledge.
Any agreement will have to be unanimous.
"We are moving out of the valley of death. We are beginning to see the outlines of a compromise, helped by the U.S. offer on finance," said Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF environmental group's global climate initiative.
Related posts:
