De Boer: Copenhagen summit 'needs legal deal'
Updated on 07 December 2009
The UN's most senior climate official Yvo de Boer tells Channel 4 News that the climate conference would fail if offers are not made a legally binding within six months.
He told Jon Snow that a failure to achieve a deal would be a failure of the conference.
As the opening sessions began, there appeared to be a new wave of optimism since many countries have now come forward with offers on carbon cuts.
The head of the UN's panel of climate scientists also strongly defended findings that humans are warming the planet, after critics said that leaked emails from a British university had undermined evidence.
"The internal consistency from multiple lines of evidence strongly supports the work of the scientific community, including those individuals singled out in these email exchanges," Rajendra Pachauri told the opening of a 192-nation climate conference in Copenhagen.
Speaking to Jon Snow Yvo de Boer said: "I think there's a general consensus that the outcome of Copenhagen needs to be turned into a legally binding treaty.
"People have different deadlines in mind for when that needs to be done - I would say do it in six months when it's still hot."
De Boer admitted there was a gap between the science and the politics but said: "You have to remember that recently Russia dramatically increased its target, Japan enormously increased its target, Europe has said it has flexibility to do more, so has Australia.
"So part of the purpose of the two weeks here is going to be to have countries negotiate with each other to achieve a greater level of ambition."
