PM in Copenhagen; seeks to preserve areas of consensus

With consensus eluding climate talks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived in Copenhagen late last night with a message to preserve the areas of consensus on mitigation actions and finances and transfers of green technologies to developing countries enshrined in the Bali Action Plan.And the last-minute bickering |See graphics |Special

With consensus eluding climate talks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh arrived here late last night with a message to preserve the areas of consensus on mitigation actions and finances and transfers of green technologies to developing countries enshrined in the Bali Action Plan.

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Prior to the meeting of over 110 world leaders at the climate change conference, Singh is scheduled to meet with his
Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao in a bid to consolidate position of the developing countries for the plenary.

"The UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol embody the international agreed regime for addressing the global
challenge of climate change," Singh had said in a statement before departing for Denmark.

The 12-day 15th Conference of Parties, which concludes here today, is expected to issue a short communique on the
need and urgency to arrest climate change instead of a political statement which could form a basis that could be the
basis of a legally-binding agreement in the future.

US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, are among the 110 leaders expected to attend the conference.

The developing countries have been resisting attempts by the rich nations to set aside the Kyoto Protocol, which sets
legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for the industrialised nations. The 1997 protocol also has a
strong compliance mechanism built in which penalises the rich nations if they do not meet emission reduction targets agreed upon by them.