Copenhagen caution

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters following talks with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London on Tuesday that he was reasonably optimistic that the Copenhagen climate summit in December would be a very important milestone.

"At the same time, realistically speaking, we may not be able to have all the words on detailed matters," the UN chief said.

Brown said that both he and Ban were determined to make progress on a successor to the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, which binds the industrialized signatory nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. The United States is not a signatory.

Any new deal in Copenhagen would have to agree on deeper cuts by 2020. Brown, who re-affirmed that he would attend the talks in Copenhagen, said he thought a deal was possible.

Commitment to firm emission limits questionable

But hopes for a legally binding agreement on cutting carbon emissions at the Copenhagen conference have been dwindling.

Experts say industrial countries should reduce emissions by 25 to 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, while the targets announced so far amount to much less than the minimum.

Meanwhile this week, negotiators from more than 190 countries were meeting for a final UN round of talks in Barcelona, Spain, aimed at pressing industrialized and developing nations to commit to new emission limits before the December conference in Denmark.

db/AP/Reuters/AFP
Editor: Nancy Isenson