UN head chides countries at Copenhagen

The dickering at the Copenhagen climate conference prompted some chiding on Tuesday from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Speaking at the UN climate change talks, hesaid rich and poor countries must "stop pointing fingers" and raise their climate targets.

Ban wants negotiators to settle their differences in the next few days, saying it would be a "serious mistake" to leave the main negotiations to world leaders. They arrive later this week.

"This is a time where they should exercise the leadership," Ban said. "And this is a time to stop pointing fingers, and this is a time to start looking in the mirror and offering what they can do more, both the developed and the developing countries."

On Monday, the G77 a group of developing countries that includes China, Brazil and India led a boycott of talks at the climate change summit.

Formal working groups were cancelled at the 192-country conference after developing states called for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to be extended past 2012, when it is expected to expire.

Accusation from China

The boycott ended later the same day following informal talks.

Ban warned that if negotiators cannot find a resolution beforeworld leaders arrive starting Tuesday, "the outcome will be either a weak one, or there will be no agreement."

"This will be a serious mistake on the part of the negotiators and the leaders if they go back empty-handed," the secretary general said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, China took a shot at developed countries, accusing them of trying to avoid helping poorer countries fight climate change.

"We still maintain that developed countries have the obligation to provide financial support," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said, adding that was "the key condition for the success of the Copenhagen conference."

China, one of the world's largest polluters, is grouped with developing nations at the talks, but the U.S. doesn't consider China to be in need of climate-change aid.

Todd Stern, a U.S. special climate envoy, said he didn't think an "environmentally sound agreement" could be created without significant participation from China.

The U.S. has offered a 17 per cent reduction from 2005 emissions levels by 2020. That amounts to a three per cent to four per cent cut from 1990 levels, the baseline year used by many other countries.

China has pledged to cut "carbon intensity" a measure of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of production by 40 per cent to 45 per cent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.

Since China's economy is expected to double in size in the coming years, that pledge means China's emissions will increase by nearly 50 per cent, instead of doubling.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are among more than 110 world leaders expected to attend the climate summit in the Danish capital this week.

Gore tries to push negotiations forward

Former U.S. vice-president Al Gore, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to raise awareness about climate change, said Tuesday that he wants to speed up a binding deal on climate change.

Instead of finishing up work with a treaty in Mexico City in a year, Gore has proposed a final meeting and treaty agreement in July and said he was sure that Mexico would go along with the new schedule.

And in a pep-talk to climate negotiators, he suggested that verifying emission cuts which the U.S. wants should be married to transparency in financial aid pledges, which poorer countries want.