Two high-level contact groups are starting to crack the "nuts" in the draft texts for the final outcome of the United Nations climate change conference (COP15) here after the nations of G77 and China received reassurance they would proceed on the draft texts that they'd been working on for the past 11 days.

The hard "nuts" include setting further targets for developed countries to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emission and working out long-term financial mechanism to help the most vulnerable countries to adapt and mitigate climate change. Other contentious issues include technology transfer and ways to measure, report and verify the efforts of CO2 reductions especially in developing countries.

No texts other than the two that were reported by the chairs of the working groups on the Long-Term Cooperative Action and the amendment to Kyoto Protocol have been negotiating will be used for moving things forward, Danish Prime Minister and COP15 president Lars Lokke Rasmussen announced at about noontime during this morning's first plenary session, which was delayed for about an hour but lasted no more than 10 minutes. A short second session followed.

Negotiations suspended yesterday morning due to the lack of clarification on the part of the COP15 presidency.

Reuters even quoted an unidentified Chinese delegate as saying that it was not possible to see achieving an operational accord to tackle global warming this week.

The United States tried to break a deadlock in UN climate talks on Thursday with a pledge to help mobilize US$100 billion a year by 2020 to assist poor nations, but pointedly warned there would be tough requirements.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the dramatic announcement with less than two days remaining.

Srinivas Krishnaswamy, with Greenpeace International, said that he has several questions about Clinton's announcement. Where will the money come from, from private sources or public funds? How much will the US contribute to it?

"She made the announcement without making commitment about emission reductions, and to me, it is useless," he said.

On behalf of G77 and China, Sudan's negotiator remarked that two "precious days" were lost. "It was not the fault of G77 and China because we had to deal with lack of clarity," she said.

Rasmussen said that at the moment, the nations are still working to make the conference "a turning point' for the fruitful cooperation on tackling climate change.

He said he is "deeply convinced" that the COP15 at Copenhagen will live up to "what the world expects and what science demands."

Asked whether China was stalling COP15's progress, Krishnaswamy said several major developing countries announced their national plans before they came to COP15 and they anticipated that the developed countries would also make their commitment to GHG emission reductions, long-term financial aid instead of short-term fast-track financing, technological cooperation and transter of intellectual property rights. "They came with a lot of hope but they saw no progress," he told China Daily.

(China Daily December 18, 2009)