Fear of commitment
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As the Copenhagen Climate Summit draws closer, Denmark's prime minister has publicly warned the world community not to expect a final deal on climate change at the December conference. His comments came as EU heads gathered to tackle a sharp East-West split on the issue.
The UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen is expected to come up with new climate deal to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol. But with many of the major players, including the United States, still to clarify their positions, doubt is growing about whether it is realistic to expect any sort of international consensus.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen gave voice to these concerns today, warning that it is not likely that "all the finer details" would be decided at Copenhagen. However, he added that he felt it was possible that in the Danish capital world leaders could thrash out the outlines of a deal, which could then be finalised at a later summit in 2010.
Mr Rasmusssen was speaking ahead of today's meeting of EU leaders in Brussels, where a united stance on climate change was one of the key issues on the agenda.
EU stuck on climate funding
The main sticking point within the EU is the question of who will pay the annual €15 billion in financial aid meant to encourage the developing world to find alternative, cleaner sources of energy. Poorer countries in the 27 nation bloc, led by Poland, are demanding a “means test”. This would see richer nations, such as the UK, France and Germany would pay more, while less well-off nations - mainly in central and eastern Europe - would contribute less.
Polish Finance Minister Jacek Roswoski said last month that: “If we say it is right for the first world to help the third world fight climate change, then we cannot expect the poorer countries of the EU to be the ones who are disproportionately helping the poorest countries in the third world.”
Warsaw says that any contributions poorer EU nations make should be on a voluntary basis.
Britain, on the other hand, is ready to pay €1 billion a year in contributions towards the package for the developing countries and expects others to pay up, too. Germany is expected to try and broker a deal between the two sides, as Berlin has yet to declare its hand on the issue.
Greenpeace and other environmental campaigners – who staged protests in Poland, Sweden and the UK yesterday – say that a lack of agreement within the EU on climate change will threaten finding a solution in Copenhagen.
"There are only a few weeks left before the climate summit in Copenhagen," says Greenpeace spokesman Anders Hellberg. "[The EU must] show climate leadership.”
