The leaders of the United Kingdom and Ethiopia will head up a new high-level group launched by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday, intended to mobilize financing swiftly to help developing countries combat climate change. The Copenhagen Accord reached at December’s United Nations conference in the Danish capital aims to jump-start immediate action on climate change and guide negotiations on long-term action, with developing countries to be given $30 billion until 2012 and then $100 billion a year until 2020.
It also includes an agreement to working towards curbing global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and efforts to reduce or limit emissions.

President Jagdeo yesterday met with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and Nepal Prime Minister Madhav Kumar, as efforts continue for leaders to work towards a favourable outcome of the Copenhagen Climate Meeting.Among the key issues discussed was the need for some of the major economies of the world to come on board with emission cuts and the issue of financing for developing countries.

Britain’s Prince Charles has hailed the historic Guyana-Norway agreement as a good approach in the battle against catastrophic climate change as the world leaders meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, faces an uphill task trying to strike a meaningful global treaty.The Prince, who has been among international figures backing this country’s climate change model, addressed the high-level opening of the summit Tuesday night, noting that the forests of the world are being “cleared at a terrifying rate.”

Talks at the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, resumed Monday afternoon after protests from developing nations forced a suspension.Discussions were limited to informal consultations on procedural issues, notably developing countries' demands for more time on the Kyoto Protocol. Some delegates talked forlornly of the vast amount of negotiating left to be done before the summit concludes, and suggested that the suspension, and the underlying tensions to which it speaks, does not bode well for the chances of any meaningful agreement.