Last best chance: two weeks that could save Earth

At stake is a deal that aims to wean the world away from fossil fuels and other pollutants to greener sources of energy,and to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from rich to poor countries every year over decades to help them adapt to climate change.

Scientists say without such an agreement,the Earth will face the consequences of ever-rising temperatures,leading to the extinction of plant and animal species,the flooding of coastal cities,more extreme weather events,drought and the spread of diseases.

Conference president Connie Hedegaard said the key to an agreement is finding a way to raise and channel public and private financing to poor countries for years to come to help them fight the effects of climate change. Hedegaard — Denmark’s former climate minister — said if governments miss their chance at the Copenhagen summit,a better opportunity may never come. “This is our chance. If we miss it,it could take years before we got a new and better one. If we ever do,” she said.

Negotiations have dragged on for two years,only recently showing signs of breakthroughs with new commitments from the US,China and India to control greenhouse gas emissions. But the commitments remained short of scientists’ demands,and the pressure was on those major emitters for bigger cuts. Swedish Environment Minister Anders Carlgren,speaking for the European Union,said it would be “astonishing” if President Barack Obama came for the final negotiation session “to deliver just what was announced in last week’s press release”.

The conference opened with video clips of children from around the globe urging delegates to help them grow up without facing catastrophic warming. Mohamad Shinaz,an activist from the Maldives,plunged feet-first into a tank with nearly 750 litres of frigid water to illustrate what rising sea levels were doing to his island nation. “I want people to know that this is happening,” Shinaz said as the water reached up to his chest.

Leah Wickham,from Fiji,broke down in tears as she handed a petition from 10 million people asking the negotiators at Copenhagen to come up with a deal to save islands like hers.

Denmark’s PM Lars Loekke Rasmussen said 110 heads of state would attend the final days of the conference. Obama’s decision to attend the end of the conference,not the middle,was taken as a signal that a pact was getting closer.

“The evidence is now overwhelming” that the world needs early action to combat global warming,said Rajendra Pachauri,the head of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He defended research in the face of a controversy over e-mails pilfered from a British university,which global warming skeptics say show scientists have been conspiring to hide evidence that doesn’t fit their theories.

“The recent incident of stealing the e-mails of scientists at the University of East Anglia shows that some would go to the extent of carrying out illegal acts perhaps in an attempt to discredit the IPCC,” he said.

The first week of the meet will focus on refining the complex text of a draft treaty. Major decisions will await the arrival next week of environment ministers and the heads of state in the final days of the conference,which ends December 18. “The time for formal statements is over. The time for restating well-known positions is past,” said the UN’s top climate official,Yvo de Boer. “Copenhagen will only be a success it delivers significant and immediate action.”

Among those decisions is a proposed fund of $10 billion each year for next three years to help poor countries create climate change strategies.