Copenhagen summit, conflict and footprint

Dispatches from Copenhagen Climate Summit:

Posted by Mark Scott

The temperature in Denmark may be hovering around freezing, but negotiations at the Copenhagen climate change summit are heating up. On December 14, delegates from African countries shut down proceedings for three hours after they complained the West was trying to shelve the Kyoto Protocol. Under the decade-old agreement, developed countries, with the notable exception of the US, which didn't ratify the treaty agreed to binding carbon reductions.

It's not just delegates from the 192 countries that are feeling the pressure. My colleague John Carey caught up with Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, who's overseeing the Copenhagen negotiations. How is de Boer holding up?

"I'm not sure if I'm on a roller coaster ride or in the House of Horrors in a plastic pink elephant", he said before adding it's really important that this conference delivers.

That's the message coming from many attending the conference.

US Secretary of the Department of Commerce Gary Locke, sees a lot of enthusiasm coming from businesses to tackle climate change.

In an interview with BusinessWeek, Locke reckons companies "want the US to do something. From a business perspective, they want certainty.

They want an energy policy and cannot make investments until they know what the rules are".

With climate change legislation slowly working its way through Congress, that certainty may still be a longtime coming. And Locke worries US companies will fall behind international rivals if domestic legislation isn't passed soon. "The longer we wait, the further other countries will move ahead", he says.

Tension surrounding a climate change deal at Copenhagen will only rise ahead of the arrival of global leaders including US President Barack Obama at the end of the week. According to delegates, the outcome remains uncertain, with many expecting negotiations to drag on well into tomorrow. "I've been to 10 or 12 of these (and) I almost always know what would come out in the end.

But this time, I have no idea what's going to come out", Director of Environmental and Energy Policy at Intel Stephen Harper said.

Business Week