news20091215gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Forests]
Key Copenhagen policy on forest protection hangs in balance
Leaked text shows that proposals would make 'Redd' scheme 'toothless and nothing but fancy window dressing'
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 13.49 GMT Article history

Plans at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen for a revolutionary agreement to end deforestation and pay poor countries to protect their forests are hanging in the balance after leaked papers showed that a new proposed text has removed many of the scheme's safeguards.

The development came as prince Charles, who has long fought for the survival of rainforests, prepared to address ministers at the formal opening of the climate summit and urged nations to conserve resources.

It emerged that the negotiating text leaked to NGOs late last night showed that the language meant to cut the approximately 20% of global greenhouse gases from deforestation in developing countries — the so-called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation scheme (Redd) — has now removed all targets for ending deforestation and significantly weakened other areas.

"Without targets, Redd becomes toothless," said Peg Putt of the Wilderness Society. "The so-called safeguards will be nothing but fancy window-dressing unless they are given legal force."

Forests protection is crucial to an ambitious deal at Copenhagen because it will not only save up to 20% of emissions which come from deforestation, but the forests provide a massive store of carbon against which countries can offset emissions at home.

In return, it was hoped that it could provide up to $40bn a year for some of the poorest countries in the world, including Congo DRC, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Gabon. In addition, countries which have already cut down their forests stand to benefit from money for reforestation.

Nobel peace prize winning environmentalist Wangaari Maathai, whose efforts have resulted in more than 1bn trees being planted by individuals worldwide in the last few years, urged countries to set ambitious targets.

She told the Guardian: "We realise now that forests are much more important for services such as regulating the flow of water, climate medicine and food. We appeal to leaders to protect the forests." Targets for deforestation in the earlier text aimed to cut deforestation by 50% by 2020 and eliminate it by 2030. These targets have now been lost.

Start-up costs for Redd are estimated to be £13.6-22.7bn from 2010-15 to support preparatory activities, although some experts challenge those figures as far too low.

Forest groups reacted with clear disappointment. "It's hardly surprising that developing countries won't commit to global targets for deforestation when rich countries haven't yet provided the necessary financing for Redd or global targets for deep reductions of industrial emissions," said Nathaniel Dyer of Rainforest Foundation UK.

Of equal concern to forest-protection NGOs, language ensuring critical safeguards for biodiversity, forest conversion, indigenous rights, and monitoring has moved from operational text. Protection of natural forests does appear explicitly in the text for the first time, and a safeguard on conversion of natural forests to plantations has reappeared, but neither are mandated.

"Limiting safeguards to the preamble weakens the agreement and deprives it of any assurance of compliance," said Dr Rosalind Reeve of Global Witness.

"Global demand for forest commodities like illegal timber and palm oil is one of the leading causes of tropical deforestation around the world," said Andrea Johnson of Environmental Investigation Agency. "If we don't address the causes of the problem, how can we find a solution?"

Also missing from the negotiating text is any provision to protect and restore the world's peat soils, which account for 6% of all global C02 emissions. "Peat soils are a key part of many countries' plans to reduce their emissions, including large emitters like Indonesia," said Susanna Tol of Wetlands International.

"Currently, an acre of forest is cut down every second, depriving the world of critical carbon reservoirs and creating huge emissions bursts into the atmosphere," said Stephen Leonard of the Australian Orangutan Project. "A Redd deal without global deforestation targets or safeguards makes it much more likely that the orangutan and other critical species that rely on the forest will become extinct."

While text can still be changed, ministerial level actions will probably now be needed to reinsert targets and strengthen safeguard language. "Clearly, everyone agrees that the world's tropical forests need to be protected," said Bill Barclay of Rainforest Action Network. "But good intentions aren't enough, they have to be paired with action. Ministers must act to strengthen the Redd text if we have any hope of a Redd that will be effective in protecting tropical forests."


[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen: 194 arrested after protesters set fire to barricades
Tear gas thrown at demonstrators like 'huge grey wave' during raid, as concerns grow of police crackdown
Bibi van der Zee
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 10.48 GMT Article histor
y

Almost 200 people were arrested late last night after protesters set fire to street barricades in a central Copenhagen neighbourhood. Protesters hurled fire bombs at riot police who responded with tear gas, officers said.

But pressure is growing for Danish police to account for their tactics, after four days of demonstrations have seen the controversial "kettle" tactic used three times, and more than 1,500 arrests, with 200 official complaints already filed.

The 194 arrests last night took place after several demonstrations during the day had been relatively peaceful. Climate Justice Action (CJA), the network organising an attempt tomorrow to take over the official talks at the Bella Centre, were holding a party in the Fredens Eng area of Christiania at which author Naomi Klein spoke.

At around 11pm Amy Jacobs, who had left the party with some friends and their three-month-old baby, said she heard bangs and explosions. "The police banged on the door, and we were saying 'We've got a baby in here, you can't come in,' and they just smashed the glass in the windows, they smashed down the door and came in."

"I'd brought my little sister down to Christiania for a drink," said Ludwig van Eekhout, a Dutch cameraman working for independent media. He saw a large fire being lit in the north part of Christiania by young activists, and heard bangs and crashes, so took his sister to the Woodstock bar for safety. While he was there the police arrived and began arresting people. "People were sitting outside having a beer and the police took them away; they took people from inside the bar outside, made them sit on the ground and cuffed their hands behind their back then took them away."

The police also fired tear gas into the CJA crowd in the Fredens Eng area. A witness who asked not to be named described seeing the tear gas coming towards him "like a huge grey wave. It burns your eyes, your skin. You feel as if your throat is closing up. It was really crowded and people were trying not to panic, but it's hard, especially if you've never been gassed before."

All but 15 of the people arrested have now been released. Those still in custody face a variety of charges including vandalism, assaulting a police officer, and disrupting the police in the course of their work.

Meanwhile more than 200 official complaints have been filed with the police about the arrests on Sunday and Saturday. Marc Jorgensen, working with a legal support group for activists, said that the complaints were focussed on the arbitrary nature of the arrests, and on the conditions in which detainees were held.

He said there is particular concern about an incident on Sunday night when, in response to a disturbance cause by some of the detainees, the police allegedly used pepper spray on the detainees in the cages. "People were really shocked," said Jorgensen. He added that every cage had reportedly been sprayed, even though many detainees had not been involved in the disturbance.

Claus Juul, lawyer with Amnesty International Denmark, said: "Over the last few years the government have handed the police more and more powers, they've been like kids in a candy shop. These situations are exactly what we have feared as a result." The director of the Danish Institute of Human Rights, Dr. LL.M. Jonas Christoffersen, added: "It is a problem for our democracy if people's right to assemble and express themselves freely in this way come under pressure."

A press spokesman for the Danish police said: "We have received some complaints after the weekend and we have been dealing with those. There were complaints about the amount of time that people were sitting on the ground, so we have brought in mats for them to sit on. We have not yet had any official complaints about the use of pepper spray in the detention centre."

news20091215gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Steven Chu pledges $350m clean tech fund to sweeten deal at Copenhagen
US energy secretary attempts to show Obama administration is serious about action on climate change
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 14 December 2009 18.42 GMT Article history

The Obama administration tried to sweeten a climate change deal for developing countries today with the promise of a $350m fund for the development of new clean energy technologies.

The fund will be used to encourage the development of renewable energy projects such as wind and solar power and more energy efficient appliances in the developing world.

In an appearance at the climate change summit in Copenhagen, the energy secretary Steven Chu likened the initiative to the breakthrough of seed technology which helped lift countries in Asia out of poverty. "We need a gamechanger like the green revolution was for agriculture," he said.

Chu's appearance before a packed hall at the US pavilion was part of an ambitious outreach effort by the Obama administration to persuade a sceptical international community it is serious about taking action on climate change. It comes amid rising rancour between rich and poor countries. The talks were suspended for five hours today, with negotiators from African and other developing countries accusing the Danish chair of ignoring their concerns.

But Chu said he detected no sign of resentment from the developing countries. "I don't feel that at all that there is any mistrust," he said. "Perhaps in discussion they may see me as a scientist and say: 'let's just get on with it. let's solve the problem'."

He followed up with an appeal for cooperation. "Rather than competing and trying to bargain to the last advantage let's approach this all with a feeling of will and compassion and endurance for the long road ahead," he said. "In the end whatever happens the world has to act on it."

Obama has dispatched more than half a dozen senior members of his team to try to demonstrate America's commitment to cutting emissions and bringing in new energy-efficient technoogies.

Chu described the initiative as an expansion of agreements reached earlier this year with India and China for joint research on energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and carbon capture and technology. Under the initiative, the US will provide $85m over five years to the fund. Italy will provide $30m and Australia $5m.

Chu used charts to show the Obama administration committing to the highest levels of spending on energy research since the oil crisis of the 1970s, with the $80bn investment in green technology in the American economic recovery package.

He singled out two promising areas of research: batteries and the development of powerful wind turbines in a more compact size.

But despite the high-visibility campaign – and the huge crush of people trying to get into the room – America still has some explaining to do.

"Because the Senate hasn't acted [to pass climate change legislation], I think there is quite a lot of interest in what the US is willing to commit," said Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

But there is one American whose green credentials are often seen as impeccable - Al Gore. The former vice-president was treated like a rock star when he made his debut at the conference centre to release two new reports on the melting of polar ice in the Arctic. He told the packed room that there was a 75% chance that the entire ice cap could be ice-free by summer in the next five to seven years.


[News > Politics > London politics]
Boris Johnson fleshes out London electric car ambitions
Mayor of London says vehicles are a way of reducing harmful emissions without hair-shirt abstinence
Hélène Mulholland
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 13.39 GMT Article history

Boris Johnson today fleshed out his ambition to turn London into the electric car capital of Europe by promising that every Londoner would be within a one mile's reach of an electric car charging point within five years.

The mayor of London said today that electric cars were a way of reducing harmful emissions in the capital without settling for "hair-shirt abstinence".

But he made clear that he expected funding support from the government to turn his ambition for mainstream use of zero carbon electric vehicles into a reality.

The mayor is under pressure to find solutions to London's poor air quality – which is among the worst in Europe and risks incurring millions of pounds of EU fines for the UK government.

Johnson first announced in April his plans to introduce 100,000 cars to the capital's streets by building the charging point infrastructure to incentivise drivers to go electric.

In a speech at an event held today in Copenhagen for city mayors from around the world running parallel to the UN climate change summit, Johnson said that 25,000 charging points would be in place by 2015: 22,500 at workplaces, 500 on the streets of London and a further 2,000 in public car parks.

A one-stop website would be launched next year for electric vehicle drivers, which will provide information on payment options and accessing the charging points across the capital.

He also signalled a private-public membership scheme so that electric car users can register their vehicle in their borough.

Johnson told his fellow mayors that the "right conditions" needed to be in place to herald in a "golden era of clean, green electric motoring".

The mayor plans to lead by example by buying 1,000 electric vehicles for the Greater London authority fleet by 2015.

Johnson said: "There is an urgent need to tackle the risk of serious and irreversible climate change, yet this does not need to be about hair-shirt abstinence. I want to pursue radical yet practical steps to cut energy waste. Electric vehicles are a clear example of how technology can provide the solution to the biggest challenge of our generation."

The UK government faces the prospect of multimilillion-pound fines after the European commission announced on Friday it had rejected an application for an extension on meeting the EU limit values on dangerous airborne particles – known as PM10s – emitted by traffic, industry, and domestic heating, until 2011.

The environment comissioner, Stavros Dimas, said on Friday that the Greater London zone is now the only UK region to fall foul of the 2005 EU directive. He rejected the government's submission requesting an extension on the grounds that did not meet the "minimum requirements" for a time extension.

The government now has four months to resubmit before legal proceedings against the UK begin again, which could lead to millions of pounds worth of fines.

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs intends to send the Conservative mayor's draft air quality strategy, which was only published in October and includes the mayor's electric vehicle plans, as part of its new submission.

However, the mayor's draft strategy excludes two key elements that were included in the government's original submission to Europe to persuade the commissioner it could comply with the 2005 values by 2011: the western extension of the congestion charge, which the mayor intends to scrap, and the third phase of the low emission zone – which would penalise polluting vans – which Johnson has delayed until 2012.

news20091215gdn3

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[Environment > Copenhagen Climate change conference 2009]
Copenhagen loopholes could mean rise in emissions, report warns
Climate summit must close loopholes or greenhouse gases may increase by 10% in 2020 compared with 1990 levels, says Friends of the Earth
John Vidal in Copenhagen
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 15 December 2009 10.27 GMT Article history

Four major loopholes in the Copenhagen draft texts could see carbon emissions increase by 2020, rather than plunge as scientists say must happen to avert dangerous global warming. That is the conclusion of a new analysis by Friends of the Earth, who argue the loopholes would cause greenhouse gases to rise by 10% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels, if they are not closed in the final four days of negotiations at the UN summit.

The most serious loophole is known as "hot air". Countries such as Russia and Ukraine were set targets to reduce emissions in 1997 when the Kyoto treaty was signed. They were also awarded carbon pollution permits for some of their expected emissions, to trade with nation that could cut carbon more cheaply. But since then their heavy industries have crashed, meaning their targets have been surpassed and they have billions of unused carbon credits which they want to carry over into the next round of targets.

"Russia could be allowed to emit more than 30% more than today, Ukraine over 50%, and they could still meet their targets. In addition, they can sell the surplus credits to another country, allowing the country that buys them to emit more," says the report. In the worst case, it says, this loophole could result in more than 15% more greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere.

The second loophole allows rich countries to "creatively account" for emissions from forestry and land use changes. If a country can show that its forestry activities emit more carbon than they store away, UN rules allow it not to account for these emissions. But if their forestry activities do store away carbon, they can account for this sequestration and receive carbon credits. "It's like claiming that building a new coal-fired power plant every year was a planned development and that the resulting emissions increases should not be accounted for," said the report.

The third loophole identified is carbon offsetting. This allows rich countries to emit more greenhouse gases than their target by paying for emission reductions in other countries. Friends of the Earth estimates that the use of offsets would lead to up to 9 per cent of cuts on 1990 emissions being wiped out from the cuts offered by rich countries.

A further 5% of emission cuts could be avoided if no agreement can be reached on aviation and shipping which account for as much as 5% of all global emissions. Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: "Rich countries must realise that these loopholes are making a mockery of the targets they have put on the table. We need cuts in line with what the science demands – cuts of at least 40 per cent by 2020. Unless rich countries plug these gaping holes, any agreement in Copenhagen will be as leaky as a sieve."

news20091215nn

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 14 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/462832a
News
Budget win for climate probe
NASA gets cash to replace a failed carbon-emissions observatory, but concerns remain over future funding.
Eric Hand

{{The replacement Orbiting Carbon Observatory will monitor Earth’s carbon sinks and sources.}
NASA/JPL}

The US Congress is ratcheting up demands for NASA to launch Earth-monitoring satellites that could help to verify the emissions targets currently being debated in Copenhagen.

In a US$447-billion spending bill approved on 13 December (see Table 1), lawmakers told NASA to spend $50 million in fiscal year 2010 on a replacement for the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), which crashed into the ocean near Antarctica in February after a rocket failure. "It looks like there is a future here," says David Crisp, the mission's principal investigator at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. But by adding the OCO to NASA's already long list of Earth-science missions — and with no promise of future funding — some Earth scientists worry that Congress is asking the agency to do too much. Berrien Moore, director of Climate Central, a think tank in Princeton, New Jersey, says that he was both "pleased and worried" by the OCO funding because of the additional burden on the mission programme.

By measuring levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the OCO could provide baseline emissions data and act as a proof-of-concept that carbon sources and sinks can be monitored from space. The observatory would measure CO2 changes to a precision of 1 part per million at a resolution of about 3 square kilometres — nearly 30 times that of the Japanese Greenhouse gases Observing Satellite (GOSAT, also known as IBUKI), which launched in January. Replacing the OCO will cost about the same as the original $280-million mission, says Crisp; if funding continues to be granted, the observatory could be launched as early as 2013.

That would require a much bigger budget for fiscal year 2011, but because NASA is one of several science agencies not included in a targeted doubling of basic-science funding (see 'Will the budget bubble burst?'), it may well face a flat budget next year. "Or worse," says Moore.

NASA already has a list of 15 other Earth-science missions that were identified in a 'decadal survey' to prioritize missions over the next ten years. In the spending bill, Congress said it was "concerned" about the limited progress of those missions, and gave $15 million to accelerate two that are intended to monitor global climate change. It has also instructed NASA to look at using commercial providers, following the lead of a panel that reviewed the agency's human spaceflight programme and earlier this year called for greater reliance on commercial rocket companies.

But Moore doesn't see the Earth-science missions being profitable enough for commercial companies to be interested in running them. In lieu of a surprise windfall in February's 2011 budget proposals, he says, NASA might need to delay the missions further: "We may have to rename the decadal programme the centennial."


[naturenews]
Published online 14 December 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.1128
News
Surgeons get real-time tissue profiling
Nuclear magnetic resonance technology could reduce time spent under the knife.
Ananyo Bhattacharya

{{Could tomorrow's surgeons be guided by nuclear magnetic resonance?}
R. McVay/Getty}

Chemical fingerprints of tissue samples taken during operations could soon help surgeons to decide where to make their incisions. Two groups — one based in the United Kingdom, the other in France — are leading efforts to use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to analyse the metabolites in biopsies. The analyses should reveal whether cells in the sample are healthy and — for the first time — relay that information back to the operating theatre within minutes.

In February, a team led by Jeremy Nicholson, head of the department of surgery and cancer at Imperial College London, is planning to install a £300,000 (US$490,000) NMR machine that can study solid samples at a surgical unit at St Mary's Hospital. It is the first step in a programme that could later see the instruments rolled out to intensive-care units and other wards in hospitals affiliated with Imperial.

It takes about 40 minutes for a histopathologist to cut, stain and mount a sample, before examining the tissue under a microscope to see whether it is cancerous. Nicholson says he would like to halve or quarter that time. The machine will be able to rapidly load samples and disposable inserts, allowing the needles used for biopsies to go directly into the spectrometer.

{{“This is huge for NMR.”}
John Kurhanewicz
University of California, San Francisco}

The machine could directly affect operations, says surgeon Ara Darzi, whose St Mary's surgical unit will host the Imperial College machine. "We do a lot of intestinal surgery," he says. "I could take a tissue sample of the two ends of the bowel that I'm going to stitch together", and spectroscopic analysis "could immediately tell me that this area of the bowel is underperfused and is not going to heal". The team will also look at what effects 'friendly' gut microbes have on the healing process after surgery.

"At some level, all disease involves molecular defect and there is really no technology at the surgeon's disposal right now that reveals anything at the molecular level," says Jeff Hoch, director of the University of Connecticut Health Center's NMR structural biology facility in Farmington. "Bringing NMR into the surgery suite is closing the circle — putting molecular tools at the disposal of the surgeon."

The French connection

Meanwhile, a second team in Strasbourg is hoping to use its own NMR machine, which was installed in Hautepierre hospital in 2007, to analyse colon and kidney samples. Starting next year, the machine will provide surgeons with information about whether they have successfully removed cancers from patients while they are on the operating table.

"We're confident we've been able to find decent biomarkers for kidney and colon biopsies," says Martial Piotto, head of the NMR application laboratory of scientific instrument maker Bruker BioSpin in Wissembourg, France, which made the Hautepierre NMR machine. "What we'd like to do now is perform some real-time analysis during a surgical operation."

Piotto, together with Izzie Namer of the nuclear medicine department at the University Hospitals of Strasbourg and Karim Elbayed, an NMR spectroscopist at the University of Strasbourg, have already built databases containing metabolic profiles of healthy and cancerous tissue from many different organs. They now plan to spend the next two–three months looking at whole diseased colons and kidneys excised from patients to see whether they can accurately identify cancerous growths from the concentrations of different metabolites in cells. By June 2010, they hope to use their expertise to inform surgical decisions.

Getting quantitative

"This is huge for NMR," says John Kurhanewicz, director of the prostate cancer imaging programme at the University of California, San Francisco. "A lot of the literature has pointed to the fact that NMR might be a very good direct medical tool but nobody has really been able to test it directly in the frame of a surgical suite like this. This really opens the door of opportunity."

"In prostate cancer, you can give the same sample to two different pathologists and get two different answers because of the complexity of the tissue and the cancer itself," he adds, saying that NMR could add a "quantitative element" to pathology that helps to pin down the diagnosis.

"I'm very excited by what they're planning," says surgeon Yuman Fong, head of the Center for Image-Guided Therapies at the Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. But for NMR to be a useful surgical tool in the long term, "it has to be fast enough, cheap enough and reliable enough", he says.

Nicholson says that the cost of carrying out NMR analysis is low — about £10 per sample, compared to the thousands of pounds that a standard set of hospital tests can cost. But the real value of NMR will be in making surgical decisions earlier and in reducing the amount of time that patients spend under the scalpel, he says.

news20091215bbc3

[One-Minute World News] from [BBC NEWS]

[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 14:42 GMT, Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Copenhagen climate summit progress 'too slow'
{Mr de Boer said not enough progress had been made at the summit}
Negotiations at the Copenhagen summit are progressing too slowly, the UN's climate chief has warned.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN's climate body, said there was still an "enormous amount of work" to be done before a final deal could be signed.

Delegates are currently poring over the details of a new draft text, ahead of the start of the conference's high-level segment on Tuesday evening.

On Friday, about 120 world leaders will attend the summit's final session.

"We are at a very distinct and important moment," he told reporters in Copenhagen.

{{COPENHAGEN LATEST}
> UNFCCC executive secretary Yvo de Boer warns that negotiations are progressing too slowly
> Organisers are unable to accommodate all of the people who want to enter the venue
> UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon warns "time is running out", as negotiations continue through Monday night
> Talks temporarily suspended when developing countries withdraw co-operation
Updated: 14:24 GMT, 15 December}

"We have - over the last week or so - seen progress in a number of areas, but we haven't seen enough of it.

"There is still an enormous amount of work and ground to be covered if this conference is to deliver what people expect it to deliver."

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be one of the first leaders here, arriving on Tuesday evening.

Non-governmental organisations are protesting that many campaigners will be turned away from the venue.

Far more people have applied to attend the summit than Copenhagen's Bella Center can hold, and NGO numbers will be progressively reduced during the rest of the week, partly for security reasons as heads of state and government arrive.

Protocol matters

On Monday, the talks were temporarily suspended after a delegation representing developing nations withdrew their co-operation.

Following the action by the African group, supported by the wider G77-China bloc of developing nations, some sessions ran long into the night as negotiators tried to make up lost time.

{{THE WEEK AHEAD}
> Tues 15 Dec - Prince Charles delivers a speech on the sustainability of human society; UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown arrives
> Weds 16 Dec - High-level segment begins; protests expected inside and outside centre
> Fri 18 Dec - More than 100 world leaders, including Barack Obama, attend closing session}

The Danish conference hosts had been accused of trying to sideline negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol by packaging discussion of outstanding difficult issues from across the various strands into a single informal session.

Developing countries are adamant that developed nations still inside the protocol - all except the US - must commit to further emission cuts under its aegis.

After discussions with the Danes and UN climate convention officials, the informal talks were split as the G77-China bloc had demanded.

One group, chaired by Germany and Indonesia, is examining further emission cuts by developed nations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Another, chaired by the UK and Ghana, is looking at long-term financing to help poorer countries develop along "green" lines and protect themselves against impacts of climate change.

A senior Chinese source, meanwhile, confirmed to BBC News that China would not accept any money from the west for these purposes.

This is likely to carry political significance in the US, where some legislators are adamant that domestic carbon-cutting measures must not hand funds to the country set to emerge as its biggest economic rival.

Here, the positions of the world's two largest emitters are very much at odds, with China rejecting US demands that its emission curbs must be subject to international verification.

The US also rejected the notion that it would deepen its offer of cutting greenhouse-gas emissions.

"I am not anticipating any change in the mitigation commitment," US chief delegate Todd Stern told reporters, saying that Washington's stance had already been spelt out by President Barack Obama.

last month, the US administration announced a series of emission targets. It pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 17% from 2005 levels by 2020, 30% by 2025, 42% by 2030 and 83% by 2050.

Head space

The final high-level segment of the summit, due to be attended by about 120 heads of state and government, will open on Tuesday evening with speeches from dignitaries including UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen and Prince Charles.

Speaking to reporters before flying out from New York, Mr Ban warned that "time is running out".

"If everything is left to leaders to resolve at the last minute, we risk having a weak deal or no deal at all," he said.

"And this would be a failure of potentially catastrophic consequence."

Prince Charles's speech will look at climate change in the context of wider concerns about the sustainability of human society.

He is expected to argue that although the human race has created the modern problem of climate change, the human race also has the capacity to solve it.

China has accused developed countries of backtracking on what it says are their obligations to fight climate change and has warned that the UN climate talks in Copenhagen have entered a critical stage.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said there had been "some regression" on the part of developed countries, who had "put forward a plethora" of demands on developing countries.

Beijing's view is that the US and other richer nations have a historical responsibility to cut emissions, and any climate deal should take into account a country's development level.


[Science & Environment]
Page last updated at 14:32 GMT, Tuesday, 15 December 2009
Science principles for ministers
{Lord Drayson said that ministers relied on scientific advice}
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Bis) has published a set of principles on how the government should engage with scientific advisers.

This formal guidance aims to "clarify the relationship between advice and policy".

Its publication follows a call from MPs for the UK government to uphold the independence of scientific advice.

The issue has been under scrutiny since the home secretary sacked former drugs adviser, Professor David Nutt.

Prior to this government announcement, the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee had recommended that if ministers do reject scientific advice, they should formally explain their decision.

The new principles do not go that far, but do suggest that, if government "is minded not to accept advice of a scientific advisory committee... the relevant minister will normally meet with the chair to discuss the issue before a final decision is made".

They also say that scientific advisers to the government must be "free to communicate in a professional capacity within their field of expertise, subject to normal confidentiality restrictions".

This point will aim to answer those scientists who criticised the Home Secretary Alan Johnson for dismissing Professor Nutt. Mr Johnson has said that Professor Nutt "crossed the line" in his role, by campaigning against government policy.

Last month, 27 of the country's leading scientists called for the principles to be established, to ensure that politics and science were kept separate.

Some scientists have claimed that there had been examples of "news management" by Whitehall departments, when the government did not agree with the conclusions of a report.

The government has now made it clear, in these guidelines, that scientific advisers "have the right to engage with the media and public independently of the government".

Culture clash

{{Ministers rely on scientific advice to develop sound government policy}
Lord Drayson}

Scientists had also criticised the government's timing when it published its response to scientific advice.

Earlier this year, the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published its own climate projections on the same day as a scientific report that criticised them.

The new principles state: "The timing of the government's response to scientific advice will demonstrably allow for proper consideration of that advice."

Science and Innovation Minister, Lord Drayson, said that the relationship between ministers and advisers was an important one.

"Ministers rely on scientific advice to develop sound government policy," he said.

"These principles, which now go out for consultation, are designed to strengthen that relationship further.

"They emphasise the importance of academic freedom, and the responsibilities of both scientists and ministers."

The government says the principles were designed to cover "trust, respect, independence, transparency and openness".

They were agreed after a series of meetings, with input from scientific advisory committees, learned societies, science media representatives and the campaigning organisation, Sense about Science.