The prospects of a deal on climate change were raised dramatically on Friday night when Barack Obama, said he would attend the final negotiating stages of the Copenhagen summit, which begins next week.
The White House said, the President believes that a continued US involvement can be productive through his participation at the end of the Copenhagen conference. All of the world’s big economies, including leading developing nations such as China and India, have now set objectives for curbing their greenhouse gas emissions. This fact was believed to be instrumental in persuading Obama he needed to be present at the end of the talks. Such commitments are a prerequisite for a deal at Copenhagen that would produce a new global framework on the reduction of emissions.“Leaders are not going to turn up and go home empty handed,”said an EU official. Previously, Obama had said he would attend the opening days of the talks, not the closing days when any deal was likely to be forged. That stance was taken as an indication that the US was not banking on an agreement. The change of heart indicates a belief that the world will sign up to a new climate-change agreement this month.
Any deal reached in Copenhagen will not have the status of an international treaty, but will consist of a signed declaration by all of the heads of state and government present that would set out clear targets and commitments on emissions. Such a “political declaration” would be turned into a legally binding treaty within six months to a year, giving governments time to ratify it in their national parliaments before the current provisions of the Kyoto protocol expire in 2012.
