Delaying UN climate deal makes no sense: Denmark

Denmark's Minister for Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard, gestures during a debate session at the Offshore Europe Conference in Aberdeen, Scotland September 8, 2009.

OSLO (Reuters) - Major nations still want a new U.N. deal in Copenhagen in December and a few months' delay to give bogged-down negotiators more time would not help, Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard said on Saturday.

"The resolve is there" to reach agreement this year, Hedegaard told Reuters after hosting two days of informal talks in Barcelona among ministers from 23 nations including China, the United States, European states, Brazil and South Africa.

"I don't think that we can solve anything in March or April that we can't solve in December," she said by telephone. Hedegaard will preside over the Copenhagen meeting.

She said that "lots of people would like to postpone" a deadline of the December 7-18 meeting in Copenhagen but that among ministers "there's a very strong will to do whatever we can."

The U.S. Senate, however, looks unlikely to agree legislation to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions before Copenhagen and many countries may be reluctant to set deep 2020 cuts without certainty that Washington will act.

Hedegaard said that there would be "lots of details we can't solve" that could be left for a annual U.N. meeting among environment ministers. The next one after Copenhagen is due in Mexico in December 2010.

Climate negotiators from 175 nations will meet from November 2-6 in Barcelona for a final session before Copenhagen to try to break deadlock between rich and poor over a deal.

The United Nations wants Copenhagen to agree on four key elements -- individual cuts in emissions for rich nations, actions by poor nations to slow their rising emissions, new finance and technology for developing nations and a system to oversee funds. But there are wide disagreements.

CORE

Hedegaard said that the talks among ministers in Barcelona "got into the core of the deal -- focusing on reductions (in greenhouse gases) and finance."

Ministers also discussed how finances would be overseen. "Usually governance -- the relationship between donor and recipients -- is very difficult. It proved to be a very constructive discussion," she said.

She declined to give details, saying ministers were keeping the discussions confidential. The U.N. panel of climate experts has said that global warming will bring more floods, droughts, disease, extinctions and rising sea levels.

In a step forward, European Union leaders agreed an offer to put on the table at Copenhagen on Friday. They agreed at a Brussels summit that developing countries will need 100 billion euros ($148 billion) a year by 2020 to battle climate change.

About 22-50 billion euros of the total will come from the public purse in rich countries worldwide and the EU will provide a share.

Developing nations such as China and India say that the developed nations must cut emissions by at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 -- arguing they got rich by burning fossil fuels since the industrial revolution.

Offers on the table so far from the rich total cuts of about 11 to 15 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Hedegaard said that she did not know if world leaders such as U.S. President Barack Obama would turn up to Copenhagen. "It's one of the topics that's being discussed," she said.

(Editing by Richard Williams)