Copenhagen:
A clearly frustrated US President Barack Obama displayed impatience on Friday with world leaders' failure to reach agreement on a new climate pact, saying America is setting an example of bold action and other nations must follow or see the world suffer catastrophic effects.
Acknowledging that some nations feel the United States is not doing enough, Obama said it's better to embrace an imperfect accord than to reach an impasse. "No country will get everything that it wants," Obama said in a brief address to the 193 nations gathered here to cap a climate summit stalemated after two weeks of talks.
Without mentioning China specifically, he addressed Beijing's resistance to making its emissions-reduction pledges subject to international review.
"I don't know how you have an international agreement where we all are not sharing information and making sure we are meeting our commitments," Obama said. "That doesn't make sense. It would be a hollow victory."
"We are running short on time," he said. "We are ready to get this done today. But there has to be movement on all sides."
And yet Obama arrived in snow-covered Copenhagen with no new proposal from the U.S. side. There had been hope that he might increase Washington's emissons-cut pledge, now only a fraction of those from other developed countries, or put a specific dollar amount on America's expected contributions into short- or long-term aid funds to help poorer nations deal with the effects of climate change they are already feeling and start the transition to cleaner energy sources.
Acknowledging that some nations feel the United States is not doing enough, Obama said it's better to embrace an imperfect accord than to reach an impasse. "No country will get everything that it wants," Obama said in a brief address to the 193 nations gathered here to cap a climate summit stalemated after two weeks of talks.
Without mentioning China specifically, he addressed Beijing's resistance to making its emissions-reduction pledges subject to international review.
"I don't know how you have an international agreement where we all are not sharing information and making sure we are meeting our commitments," Obama said. "That doesn't make sense. It would be a hollow victory."
"We are running short on time," he said. "We are ready to get this done today. But there has to be movement on all sides."
And yet Obama arrived in snow-covered Copenhagen with no new proposal from the U.S. side. There had been hope that he might increase Washington's emissons-cut pledge, now only a fraction of those from other developed countries, or put a specific dollar amount on America's expected contributions into short- or long-term aid funds to help poorer nations deal with the effects of climate change they are already feeling and start the transition to cleaner energy sources.
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