Copenhagen: still no deal between US and China
Updated on 18 December 2009
As world leaders drop plans for a legally binding climate deal by the end of 2010, a Chinese spokesperson rejects President Obama's call for more transparency in the monitoring of China's carbon emissions as "humiliating".
A coming together of nations on an unprecedented scale to resolve an unprecedented global crisis, centred not on war, but on science.
But an epic collision between China and America has been the unravelling of the UN process that was supposed to deliver ambitious emission reduction targets in an ambitious time frame.
The United Nations has asked world leaders to prepare to stay talking through the night.
US President Barak Obama and China's Wen Jiabao staged a last minute emergency face to face meeting. The result of which will seal the fate of this entire meeting.
Obama's speech earlier today was a thinly veiled attack on China's resistance to external monitoring of her carbon emission - one Chinese climate expert told Channel 4 News it humiliated China.
President Obama is preparing to fly home tonight, with slim hopes of any major breakthrough. A new draft for a climate deal has dropped a reference to an end-2010 deadline for reaching a legally binding treaty that had been in a previous text.
There have been huge efforts from leaders to successfully resolve many other issues not least the transfer of cash from emitters to developing nations.
Whilst the failures have proved so far catastrophic, there have been some successes - although not without controversy.
World leaders have agreed temperatures should not increase by more than two degrees Celsius, compared with pre-industrial levels. Scientists say that is the minimum needed to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Many developing countries wanted it to be limited to1.5 degrees.
But there is no agreement yet on the most important measure to achieve that - a cut in carbon emissions. There is still no agreed figures for how deep countries' cuts should be or when they should happen.
There has been some progress on money. The developed world will pay the world's poorest countries $30bn straight away to help them cut emissions, aiming to reach $100bn a year by 2020.
The United States will contribute if it can be sure that countries like China are making the cuts they claim. And it's monitoring which is proving the major stumbling block.
These measures are still just aspirations. The aim now is to make a deal legally binding at another conference next year.
'We have to ensure there is transparency'
Jon Snow asked the US negotiator and Democratic senator Edward Markey why the US wanted China’s emissions monitored.
"We’re looked for some system that’s put in place that will say to the rest of the world that China is honouring their commitments… That’s the final remaining major obstacle here."
He continued: "We just have to be sure that there is sufficient transparency that the part of the world that will be emitting upwards of 25 per cent of the greenhouse gases is, in fact, honouring their promise."
The senator rejected the suggestion that the US wanted a confrontation with China. "The president wanted to have a negotiated resolution of the issue… The president was very hopeful that this issue would be resolved before he arrived."
And he anticipated that the talks would continue. "Premier Wen and President Obama had an extensive negotiation after they each addressed the conference, and I believe that these discussions are going to continue. And I’m hopeful that a positive result will be the conclusion."
'A humiliating lack of trust'
Later in the programme Jon Snow asked Changhua Wu, China director of The China Group, what she thought the Chinese delegation made of President Obama’s speech. She said: "It’s not only an attack. It’s humiliating to a certain level."
"President Obama came on and talked about, emphasised, this transparency issue. Transparency is important. No-one argues about that."
She continued: "The US president basically said: ‘OK. Transparency. You said you were going to do this and that. How do I know?’ That’s really humiliating, basically saying there’s a huge lack of trust there."
"And without that there’s no foundation for countries to really seriously work with each other. That’s fundamentally the problem."
