Copenhagen climate talks are last chance, says Gordon Brown

Patrick Wintour
guardian.co.uk, Monday 19 October 2009
Gordon Brown will warn today that the world is on the brink of a "catastrophic" future of killer heatwaves, floods and droughts unless governments speed up negotiations on climate change before vital talks in Copenhagen in December.
This applies to the US as much as anyone, he will say, adding that "there is no plan B", and that agreement cannot be deferred beyond the UN-sponsored Copenhagen conference.
There are fears that Barack Obama does not have the political capital to reach a deal in Copenhagen and will instead use a visit to China next month to reach a bilateral deal that circumvents the UN.
Downing Street is also concerned that there is no agreement on how to finance a climate change package in developing countries.
The prime minister will deliver his warning to a meeting of environment ministers brought together under the umbrella of the Major Economies Forum. The 17 countries in the forum are responsible for 80% of greenhouse gas emissions.
Brown will tell them: "In every era there are only one or two moments when nations come together and reach agreements that make history, because they change the course of history. Copenhagen must be such a time. There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next 50 years and more.
"If we do not reach a deal at this time, let us be in no doubt: once the damage from unchecked emissions growth is done, no retrospective global agreement in some future period can undo that choice. By then it will be irretrievably too late."
Ed Miliband, the climate change secretary yesterday highlighted signs of movement pointing out that last month India said it was ready to set itself non-binding targets for cutting carbon emissions, while China said it would curb the growth of its emissions by a "notable margin" by 2020, although it did not specify further.
The US special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, said developing economies must boost their efforts to curb emissions, warning it was "certainly possible" that no deal would be agreed in Copenhagen."What we need to have happen is for China and India and Brazil and South Africa and others to be willing to take what they're doing, boost it up some, and then be willing to put it into an international agreement," he said.