UN chief: World must ’seize the day’ on climate change before key global summit in Copenhagen

October 8th, 2009 BANGKOK - "Time is running out for Copenhagen," the UN climate chief said here Thursday, exactly two months before the start of the summit that is expected to seal a deal to tackle global warming. The 4,000-odd negotiators from 177 countries, who are here for the Sep 28-Oct 9 talks to prepare for the December summit, have one day here and five days in Barcelona next month to draft an agreement for Copenhagen, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer pointed out.

October 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama's top aide on climate change acknowledged that legislation requiring major reductions in global-warming emissions is unlikely to pass Congress before December's Copenhagen summit on climate change. Carol Browner, director of the White House Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy, said Friday in Washington that completion of the legislative process before Obama attends the Copenhagen meeting "is not going to happen", The New York Times reported early Saturday on its website.

September 25th, 2009 PITTSBURGH - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh says developed nations would need to provide funding and affordable technology to developing nations in return for any commitments to fight climate change. "There is a broad, vague agreement that any agreement in which developing countries are also required to take any national action will have to be accompanied by credible action on the part of developed countries," he said at a post G-20 summit news conference Friday.

September 22nd, 2009 NEW YORK - US President Barack Obama Tuesday promised a serious US effort to curb greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change and called on all major polluters to make concessions to reach a new global climate treaty. In a speech at the start of a one-day climate summit at UN headquarters in New York, Obama acknowledged the US has been slow to respond to global warming in the past.

September 21st, 2009 UK's Brown wants summit for climate change pactLONDON — World leaders need to attend a key climate change summit in Copenhagen to avert the "grave danger" that nations will fail to agree a new global pact tackling climate change, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown declared Monday. In an article for Newsweek magazine, Brown said he will attend the talks in Copenhagen on Dec.

September 18th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The United States' top climate official said there had been a "narrowing of differences" after a meeting of the world's 17 top polluters that are critical to reaching any international deal on curbing climate change. Todd Stern, the US State Department's envoy on climate change, said Friday some "concrete initiatives" that could help broker a deal were considered during two days of talks by the climate officials in Washington.

September 10th, 2009 EU steps up efforts for new global climate pactCOPENHAGEN — Fearing that a possible global deal on climate change is in danger, European foreign ministers announced Thursday they were stepping up efforts to make sure that nations around the world face up to global warming. Five EU foreign ministers have been traveling to European capitals for the last week to press the issue — and now they are taking the case for tackling climate change to other world capitals.

September 8th, 2009 UK: Global deal on climate change may not happenLONDON — Britain's Foreign Secretary says there is danger a United Nations conference in December won't strike a global deal on climate change. David Miliband said Tuesday the complexity of negotiations and disputes between industrialized and developing nations leave prospects for a deal "in the balance." He said they threaten to sink a new global pact which would replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the conference in Copenhagen.

September 1st, 2009 GENEVA - Ahead of the much awaited United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, experts from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) have expressed hope that the meet will be successful, despite continuing differences among various countries. The conference is slated from Dec 7-18.

August 28th, 2009 UN chief urges world to back climate dealVIENNA — The U.N. chief is urging the world to "seal the deal" on climate change ahead of a major conference on global warming in December.

August 21st, 2009 Experts: water issue crucial in world climate dealSTOCKHOLM — Thousands of scientists and experts urged world leaders Friday to include strategies for global water management in the planned Copenhagen climate agreement. Participants at the World Water Week conference said climate change will severely affect water supplies and poorer countries need support to help them adapt.

July 30th, 2009 UN chief says China wants climate dealUNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says China's leaders have assured him they want to seal a deal on a new U.N. climate treaty at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December.

July 25th, 2009 ARE - The European Union (EU) is hoping for progress in the run-up to a global climate change summit in December, Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren said Saturday. "We expect the negotiations to speed up," Carlgren said at the end of a two-day informal meeting of EU environment ministers in Are, 630 km northwest of Stockholm.

July 11th, 2009 ON BOARD AIR INDIA ONE - India and China need to resist pressure from industrialised countries on the issue of climate change, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Saturday. The developed countries are by far the biggest polluters of the environment since the start of the Industrial Age.

July 9th, 2009 L'AQUILA - Developed countries comprising the G8 are unwilling to commit themselves to reducing greenhouse gas emissions drastically by 2020, despite scientists across the world and developing countries urging them to do so. With the issue of climate change becoming significant during the G8-G5 summit here, especially in the run-up to the UN climate change summit to be held in Copenhagen this December, emerging economies of the G5 are exerting pressure on the G8 to commit to earlier targets on reducing emissions.