US President Barack Obama and leaders at an Asia Pacific summit in Singapore on Sunday gave support to plans by Denmark to agree only a political deal, not a full legal treaty, in Copenhagen.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen outlined a plan for a 5-8 page "political agreement" in Copenhagen to cover key issues such as curbs on greenhouse gas emissions, and that sets a deadline for agreeing a binding legal text sometime in future.
"We should not make the perfect the enemy of the good," Obama told delegates at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Singapore.
But African nations, the least developed countries, small island states and some European nations have all insisted that a proper treaty should be agreed in Copenhagen.
"Every indication is that [these nations] still want a legally binding outcome in Copenhagen," said Kim Carstensen of the WWF environmental group, which also wants a treaty agreed there. "It's just too early to lower the ambition," he said.
Rasmussen said Copenhagen could still agree goals such as cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by developed nations, actions by developing nations to slow their rising emissions and funds to help the poor, even if they were not enshrined in legal text.
"We are not aiming to let anyone off the hook," he said.
"I doubt the majority of countries will buy this 'face-saving' plan," said Kaisa Kosonen of Greenpeace, saying it ignored the needs of nations most vulnerable to more floods, droughts, sandstorms, disease or rising sea levels.
Yi Xianliang, counsellor at the department of treaty and law at the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is negotiating in the climate talks, said the target of a 50% global cut in the original draft APEC statement was "very controversial".
This "might have disrupted negotiations," Yi told a news conference, adding the decision to remove the target was a collective decision.
APEC member South Korea gave the UN climate talks a small boost by opting for the toughest of three voluntary emission targets, choosing minus 4% from 2005 levels by 2020, a government source told Reuters in Singapore.
The United States and Japan agreed on Friday they would aim to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and back a global goal to halve emissions by mid-century.
Eyes on 2010 Mexico conference
Acknowledging that Copenhagen will not provide a full, legally binding treaty for the parties to ratify, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon suggested the world may not have to wait for COP16 in Mexico, December 2010, to get an agreement.
Quoting the secretary-general's climate advisor Janos Pasztor, Reuters reports that Ban Ki-Moon "has consulted with a number of heads of state and so far the general feeling seems to be that we should try to complete the job earlier than later. So, more like the six months than the 12".
This would leave the US enough time to pass a climate bill, which is currently blocked in the Senate, Ki-Moon said. "If the US Senate is not able to move forward in early spring, then we're back in the same situation, so we need to take that into account," Pasztor said.
EU hails Brazil pledge
The European Union praised Brazil for its pledge on Friday to take its emissions back to 1990s levels by 2020 - potentially a cut of some 20% from the 2.1 million tonnes of greenhouse gases it produced in 2005.
"This is a potentially decisive step to achieve a global deal in Copenhagen in December and to succeed in the fight against climate change," said José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Union's executive arm, the European Commission.
Brazil, among the world's biggest carbon polluters mostly due to deforestation, has become a major player in climate negotiations after years of rejecting such talks and saying the onus was entirely on rich countries to cut emissions.
But APEC's stance is more significant because its 21 members account for some 60% of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution.
Last-chance ministerial meeting in Copenhagen?
About 40 environment ministers meet in Copenhagen today (16 November) to try to salvage a UN climate deal next month, after the weekend's Asian summit.
The ministers, including from top greenhouse gas emitters China and the United States, are due to meet for two days in a Copenhagen hotel in one of the final chances to break a long-running deadlock between rich and poor.
The ministers' talks this week in Copenhagen are due to be closed to the media, except for a final news conference.
Developing nations insist that rich countries must agree to deep 2020 cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions and come up with billions of dollars to help the poor cope.
But rich nations, hit by recession and with unemployment above 10% in the United States for the first time since the 1980s, have been reluctant to promise too much in the sluggish negotiations, launched in Bali, Indonesia in 2007.
A big problem is that the United States, the only industrialised nation outside the existing Kyoto Protocol for curbing emissions until 2012, has not yet agreed carbon-capping laws. Many nations are unwilling to act while uncertainty remains about Washington's commitment.
(EurActiv with Reuters.)
