COPENHAGEN — The United Nations climate change summit at Copenhagen drew to a close Friday night with negotiators securing a non-binding agreement between the developed and developing nations.
President Barack Obama said that a “fundamental deadlock in perspectives” had overshadowed the negotiations. He said that a climate deal had been reached with India, China and South Africa, but admitted that it was not enough to fight global warming. He added: “We have much further to go.”
In its statement released at 10:30pm local time, the White House described the agreement as meaningful.
“No country is entirely satisfied with each element but this is a meaningful and historic step forward and a foundation from which to make further progress,” it said.
OBAMA PUSHES WORLD LEADERS, BUT MAKES NO CONCESSIONS
KEY QUOTES FROM OBAMA’S COPENHAGEN SPEECH
The deal did not include emissions reduction targets, only an overarching aspiration to limit the temperature rise to two degrees centigrade.
It had been a day of tension, elation and snubs. US negotiators were taken aback that the Chinese leader sent his deputy to the main negotiations. Wen Jiabao, the prime minister, was said to have taken offense at President Obama’s speech to delegates not to agree on “empty words on a page.” World leaders began leaving the summit before anything was signed.
Drafts of the “Copenhagen accord” were leaked every couple of hours, each one sacrificing another commitment in the scramble to achieve a compromise. And despite two years of negotiations, the key sticking points — emissions cuts, monitoring of emissions and the legal nature of the deal — all reemerged in the final hours.
To read more, go to The Times of London.