The Copenhagen climate change conference is heading for its end on December 18 2009 with uncertainty about whether ambitions for a comprehensive, ambitious set of commitments will be realized.
 
Talks remain deadlocked, the BBC said on December 17, with developed and developing nations remain at odds over who should cut emissions, how deep the cuts should be, and how much aid should go to poor countries.
 
World leaders and protesters converged on the conference venue amid calls for a pact to be achieved by the close of business.
 
Climate activists, angry at the slow pace of negotiations, descended on the Bella Centre on December 16. More than 100 were arrested when they attempted to breach the security barrier, while inside the centre, some accredited delegates from NGOs staged their own protests.
 
Nine days of talks have produced no major breakthrough with some saying that delegates have spent too much time posturing and repeating positions rather than compromising, the Voice of America said on December 16.
 
UK prime minister Gordon Brown, in Copenhagen for the conference, said that a failure to act could effect the quality of life for millions of people.
 
The White House said that US president Barack Obama was confident that an agreement can be reached this week.
 
The outcome of the historic climate change negotiations in Copenhagen hinges on the issues of emissions reductions and financing, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on December 16, according to the UN News Service.
 
He urged world leaders to use the final days of the talks to strike an ambitious new agreement.
 
The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has found that to stave off the worst effects of climate change, industrialised countries must slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, and that global emissions must be halved by 2050.
 
"I hope that the developed countries should come out with more ambitious mid-term target by 2020 against the 1990 level," Ban told reporters in Copenhagen.
 
The other main issue, Ban said, is "the most important key to bridge the gap between the developed countries and the developing," and he called for "sufficient financial and technological support for the developing countries, particularly the most vulnerable states."
 
Ban said there has been progress on this front, with $10 billion having been committed every year until 2012 by both the European Union and Japan. With two-thirds of the money needed already having been pledged, he expressed confidence that the remainder is forthcoming.
 
He also underscored the importance of a "firm commitment by the developed countries that this long-term financial support will be given and should be given and there should be an initial formulation of mechanism or mechanisms for this provision of financial support."
 
Yvo de Boer, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), also pointed to some outstanding issues in the final days of the Copenhagen summit.
 
"I still believe that it’s possible to reach a real success [in Copenhagen], but I must say in that context that the next 24 hours are absolutely crucial and need to be used productively," he told a news conference.
 
To pave the way towards "sealing the deal" on a new climate agreement, Ban met on December 16 with leaders and representatives of groups of nations, including the Group of 77 (G77), the African Group, the Least Developed Countries and the Association of Small Island States.
 
Among the leaders he met on the sidelines of the conference were UK prime minister Brown and Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri.
 
The summit under way is "as momentous as the negotiations that created our great United Nations… from the ashes of war more than 60 years ago," Ban said at the opening of the high-level meeting. "Once again, we are on the cusp of history."
 
Any deal, Ban said, should incorporate five key elements: more ambitious mid-term emissions reductions targets from industrialized countries; stepped-up efforts by developing nations to curb emissions growth; an adaptation framework; financing and technology support; and transparent and equitable governance.
 
He underlined the need for countries to hammer out how to provide medium- and long-term financing to bolster climate resilience, limit deforestation and further low-emissions growth.
 
In a related development, a UN independent expert said on December 16 that any agreement reached in Copenhagen must emphasise human rights to avert hunger among the world’s most vulnerable.
 
"Climate change is a ticking time bomb for global food security," said Olivier De Schutter, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food.
 
Global warming, he said, disproportionately impacts some of the poorest countries, especially the most vulnerable in these nations, with small-scale farmers and indigenous peoples dependent on land for their livelihoods.
 
The expert called on states to "exploit the untapped potential of sustainable agriculture in order to combat hunger and climate change at the same time."
 
He also reiterated last week’s call from a group of UN human rights experts, including himself, that "a weak outcome of the climate change negotiations threatens to infringe upon human rights."
 
Policies, De Schutter said, must be based on a human rights framework and take the right to adequate food into account so that the needs of the most vulnerable will be prioritised and that poverty and inequality will not be exacerbated.
 
"This is not a theoretical debate," he said, adding that there have been real cases of the violation of the right to food linked to climate policies.
 
A new report issued on December 16 said that the cost of not reaching a global agreement to mitigate the effects of climate change in Copenhagen will be equivalent to 137 per cent of the current gross domestic product in Latin America and the Caribbean by 2100.
 
Without international mitigation actions, the region stands to suffer losses in agriculture, biodiversity and infrastructure, while facing the growing intensity of natural disasters, according to the study, backed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).
 
On December 16, the EU and the African Union (AU) met in Copenhagen, according to a statement by the Swedish Presidency of the EU.
 
AU chief negotiator, Ethiopian prime minister Meles Zenawi, informed the meeting about the offer from the AU that he had presented earlier in the day.
 
"We need positive energy in this conference," Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt told a news conference.
 
The offer, which will form a contribution to the final phase of the climate negotiations, means that the AU supports the EU’s estimate of how much financing is needed to fight climate change – provided that at least half of the money goes to countries in Africa and other developing nations.
 
During the autumn, the EU agreed that 100 billion euro was needed between now and 2020 if the world is to successfully tackle climate change.
 
Last week, the European Council decided that an additional seven billion euro was needed annually from 2010 to 2012 to help developing countries kick-start their efforts against climate change. The EU has committed to provide 2.4 billion euro of this sum each year.
 
"If we can show that the EU and the AU are co-operating with one another, then we are approaching that shouldering of responsibility that the world requires," Reinfeldt said.
 
At the same time, Reinfeldt emphasised that Africa is responsible for a very marginal part of the world’s emissions. All African countries together are responsible for only three per cent of global emissions – and, of that amount, the majority comes from South Africa.

"So the discussion between the European Union and the African Union is not only about emissions reductions. It is rather part of a global solution to stop climate change as a whole," Reinfeldt said.
 
In a speech on December 16, Sweden’s environment minister Andreas Carlgren, representing the EU, called for greater emissions reductions from the world’s emerging economies than those to which they have so far committed. Carlgren said that the United States and China now hold the key to successful final negotiations.
 
"The EU recognises the action already taken by some developing countries. But the world needs more. We will never succeed without important contributions from the emerging economies. They must reduce emissions significantly compared to ‘business as usual’," Carlgren said.
 
"The breakthrough must happen here and now. Now is the time to give and take," he said.
 
He addressed the US and China directly, emphasising that their capacity to reduce their emissions would be crucial to getting an agreement in place.
 
"Unleash your full potential and thereby the world’s efforts. Make it possible for the world to keep the rise in temperature to below two degrees", said Mr Carlgren.
 
However, according to a report by news agency Reuters on December 17, an official from another nation involved in the talks said that China had told participants that it saw no possibility of achieving a detailed accord to tackle global warming. The official, who asked not to be identified, said that China instead had suggested issuing "a short political declaration of some sort".