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| Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary General, speaking in Copenhagen, Dec 15, 2009
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It may not be possible to get a new deal over global warming at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown admitted today in Copenhagen. Money compensation for poorer countries remains a key stumbling block.
He told the BBC the barriers were "huge" but"not insurmountable".
Brown said ministers faced an "uphill struggle" but that he was determined to play his part in "bringing the world together".
He told BBC One's Breakfast programme: "If you don't get an agreement this week, people will doubt whether you can get an agreement at all."
Ban Ki-moon, secretary-general of the UN, told the Financial Times in an interview on Tuesday that countries could sign a deal at Copenhagen without a firm commitment from developed nations on long-term financing for poorer countries to combat global warming. “We can start next year discussing this matter,” Ban said.
Arriving in Copenhagen, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd warned that there was "no guarantee of success." "You've got 190 countries," Rudd said, and"conferences like this are full of political rhetoric."
India's environment minister termed Australia a "sort of ayatollah of the single track" in reference to Canberra's support for a single deal for all countries.
Developing countries have long insisted that any Copenhagen deal must include assurances that they would receive finance flows of at least $100bn a year by 2020.
On Tuesday, the Prince of Wales, the UK crown prince, warned delegates the "eyes of the world" were upon them and said they had the power to"write our future".
The man with a household of about 50 staff and several homes, said the planet had reached a "point of crisis" and urged leaders to "listen to the cries" of those already suffering from climate change.
Over 130 national leaders will be in the Danish capital on Thursday with the aim of signing a deal the following day.
Talks were briefly suspended on Monday by African nations over the future of the Kyoto Protocol, currently the only legally binding pact on climate change.
Many industrialised countries are hoping to merge the Protocol and the outcome of the two-week Copenhagen meeting, in its second week, into a single agreement.
However, their developing counterparts, among the least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, want to extend the Protocol past 2012, when its first commitment period ends, and hammer out a separate agreement this week in the Danish capital.
On Tuesday, Yvo de Boer, the head of negotiations, admitted things are moving “too slowly” as pressure grew on the world’s two biggest emitters China and the US to compromise over cutting carbon emissions and committing money to climate change.
“I also know that the legitimate concerns of the most vulnerable remain,” the UN Secretary General also said on Tuesday. “Ambition levels are not sufficient.”
