Gordon Brown urges world leaders to attend Copenhagen climate change talks

• Extra effort needed to end climate talks deadlock• Negotiations are so slow 'deal is in grave danger'
Patrick Wintour, political editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 September 2009 22.31 BST
Gordon Brown is to urge his fellow world leaders to agree to go personally to the vital UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December in an attempt to break what is rapidly becoming a dangerous deadlock.
Brown will make his proposals when he joins world leaders in New York and Pittsburgh next week to discuss climate change talks and the world economy.
The UN Copenhagen talks are due to be attended only by environment ministers, but Brown believes the issues are so momentous, so complex and so likely to determine the shape of national economies that the meeting will require the attendance of world leaders in the final set of negotiations in mid-December.
Green groups and his own climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, have been pressing Brown to take the lead and say he is willing to attend the talks.
Writing in Newsweek tomorrow, Brown warns: "The negotiations are proceeding so slowly that a deal is in grave danger." He ups the ante by becoming the first head of government to say he will go to Copenhagen to try to agree a framework on climate change for the post-2012 era when the Kyoto protocol expires.
He writes: "Securing an agreement in Copenhagen will require world leaders to bridge our remaining differences and seize these opportunities. But I believe it can be done. And if it is necessary to clinch the deal, I will personally go to Copenhagen to achieve it."
It is understood he has already been in touch with some world leaders to urge them to make similar pledges.
Brown argues the negotiations are not simply about environmental regulations, saying that "the UN talks are not just about safeguarding the environment, but also about stimulating economic demand and investment".
A No 10 source said tonight: "The talks are not yet deadlocked, but they are not going fast enough. These talks cannot be just left to the official negotiators, and given the consequences of what will be decided for energy prices and economies, they cannot be left only to environment ministers.
"In some countries they simply do not have the authority to make a deal. It is going to need big figures with the authority to direct the talks. None of this can be settled at three in the morning barter."
Rolling negotiations are already underway in the run-up to Copenhagen, including a special session at the UN tomorrow. The developing countries are still demanding the developed countries commit themselves to a large interim carbon emission cuts of 40% by 2020 on 1990 levels, something neither the EU or the Americans have been willing to agree. The new Japanese government has pledged to cut emissions by 25% by 2020.
The developed countries are in turn seeking commitments that countries such as China and India will say what they will do in the medium term to cut their emissions. By 2020, two-thirds of emissions will come from countries now considered developing nations, such as China and India. China counters that it is not a big emitter in per capita terms.
No 10 is hoping that President Hu Jintao of China will make an important statement at the UN on Tuesday in New York at a meeting convened by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon.
Developing countries are also demanding more green technology cash than the $100bn (£62bn) a year by 2020 from public and private sources that has so far been proposed by the EU on Brown's initiative. Few industrialised countries have said how much they are willing to contribute to this fund. The developed countries are also demanding to know how the money will be spent. There are also issues of how the post-2012 framework is going to be governed.
Ruth Davis, the RSPB's head of climate change, said: "The prime minister's personal attendance at the Copenhagen summit is extremely welcome news, and shows the necessary commitment world leaders need to display if we are to tackle the greatest threat faced by mankind and the environment."