Curtains come down on Climate Conference

The UN-sponsored Climate Summit here came to a close today after 13 days of hectic negotiations with participating countries deciding to "take note" of a US-brokered deal with India and three other emerging economies.

The UN-sponsored Climate Summit here came to a close today after 13 days of hectic negotiations with participating countries deciding to "take note" of a US-brokered deal with India and three other emerging economies.

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Curtains came down on the 193-nation conference, the largest and most important climate meeting in history, at 3:26
pm (local time).

Though the conference failed to adopt a binding treaty on emission cuts, as a face saver it decided to "take note" of
a US-brokered deal with India, China, Brazil and South Africa, which was rejected by poor countries.

The US-BASIC accord promised to limit gas emissions to 2 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels and peaking of
global and national emissions at the earlies, among other things.

The deal was brought to the plenary as a draft document but was strongly opposed by Sudan, Cuba, Bolivia,
Venezuela and some other countries on the ground it lacked specific targets for reducing carbon emissions. They contended that it was one-sided and suicidal.

Several countries including Japan, Germany and Britain besides Maldives supported the deal.