Britain’s Brown says talks on climate change pact are historic test of global cooperation

UK’s Brown urges progress on climate pact

LONDON — The world has less than two months to agree on how to avoid catastrophic global warming whose impact would be felt for generations, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday, a stark warning that puts pressure on the United States to finalize its position before this year’s global climate conference in Denmark.

Brown told delegates to the Major Economies Forum talks in London that countries need to compromise with one another to reach a deal at December’s conference to avoid “the catastrophe of unchecked climate change.”

“There are now fewer than 50 days to set the course of the next few decades,” Brown said. “We cannot afford to fail. If we fail now, we will pay a heavy price. … If we falter, the Earth will itself be at risk.”

The U.N. conference in Copenhagen will cap two years of negotiations on a global climate change treaty to replace the U.N.’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol on carbon dioxide emissions. Brown, who plans to attend the U.N. conference, called on fellow leaders to join him in hammering out an urgent agreement.

“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.”

Despite Brown’s grim warning, the Swedish and British environment ministers said progress had been made on figuring out how funds will be handled to help poor countries adapt to climate change and slow the growth of their own emissions.

“We are more in agreement about how the financial system should be managed, and there is also shared support for the idea that developing countries should be included and have their say in the management of the system,” Sweden’s Andreas Carlgren told The Associated Press.

The financial architecture is a key element of a Copenhagen agreement, though not one of the most contentious issues.

More pressing is the demand by developing countries to know how much money the wealthy countries are prepared to pay. The environmental group Greenpeace said Monday at least $140 billion a year will be needed. European Union finance ministers were to meet Tuesday in Luxembourg to discuss the offer the EU will take to Copenhagen.

President Barack Obama revived the small forum of leading economies earlier this year, but details of the discussions usually are kept confidential.

The United States’ climate envoy, Todd Stern, said after the meeting that it was unlikely that President Barack Obama would heed the call to attend the Copenhagen conference in person.

“We’re not writing anything off … but we treat this as a ministerial meeting,” Stern said.

Stern also declined to go as far as Brown in saying the world faced a catastrophe, saying “you should ask a scientist.”

Few other world leaders have said they will go to the U.N. conference, though Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will likely attend.

British Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said clinching a new pact was proving to be an “uphill struggle.”

“This is absolutely not a done deal,” he said after the 17-nation London meeting. Still, he said, “I feel it’s more doable today than I did yesterday.”

Wealthy nations are seeking broad controls on emissions from all countries in the new pact.

Developing countries say industrialized nations should carry most of the burden, saying tough limits on their emissions would likely hamper their economic growth.

The British leader appealed to both the industrialized and developing world, saying they each could take advantage of business opportunities in creating new energy sources and improving energy efficiency.

The two-day talks in London, ending Monday, were attended by representatives from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, Britain and the United States.

Pressure has been mounting for the U.S. to put together a position before the U.N. conference. The Obama administration says that is tied to action by Congress, where climate bills are slowing moving forward.

Stern said the United States was “making headway” but gave no concrete proposals for emissions reductions.

Other nations, including India, China, Brazil and Mexico, have agreed to draw up national programs to slow the growth of greenhouse gas emissions, but have resisted making those limits binding and subject to international monitoring in a treaty.

Worries over the U.S. and China have led to mounting pessimism that a deal can be struck in Copenhagen without major policy changes.

“The prospects that states will actually agree to anything in Copenhagen are starting to look worse and worse,” Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. scientific panel studying climate change, wrote in a Friday post on the Newsweek Web site.

Associated Press Writers Malin Rising in Stockholm and David Stringer in London contributed to this report.