Obama emerges with slender pact
Eight-minute speech to summit viewed as a huge disappointment
Copenhagen: Barack Obama emerged from the chaotic final hours of the Copenhagen summit on Friday night having salvaged an agreement for action on global warming and his own reputation as a politician who can bridge the most challenging of political divides.
After 15 hours of negotiations, an exhausted looking Obama said he managed to secure a deal on climate change incorporating America's three main goals of emissions cuts, financial aid for the poorest countries, and a measure of accountability for emissions pledges from developing countries.
But he acknowledged the skimpy 2.5 page draft produced at the end of his effort was not the comprehensive agreement he had come to Copenhagen for.
‘Fundamental deadlock'
"I think it is important that instead of setting up a bunch of goals that just end up not being met, that we get moving," he said. "We just keep moving forward."
Obama's hectic day of negotiations began immediately on his arrival in Copenhagen, when he encountered what he described as a "fundamental deadlock" between rich and developing countries.
Much of that was a product of the deep resentment at America for its emissions reductions target: a 17 per cent reduction over 2005 levels by 2020. That offer too was conditional on Congress passing climate change legislation. In the final days of the summit, a more vexing issue emerged over America's demands that China and other rapidly emerging countries offer an accounting of their actions to curb the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.
Obama emerged claiming to have wrung an important concession from China and India to offer a fuller accounting of its emissions reductions. "The truth is we can actually monitor a lot of what takes place through satellite imagery and so forth."
The reassurances are crucial for US domestic political consumption, where there is concern about losing economic ground to China and India in the transition to a clean energy economy. It did not seem at first the president would be capable of breaking down the divide. Obama's eight-minute speech to the summit was viewed as a huge disappointment.
Although he called for bold and decisive action, Obama, who had been skittish at going to Copenhagen in the first place offered no sign Washington was willing to take such steps itself.
