Copenhagen:
Nations attending the United Nations climate talks in Copenhagen on Wednesday reinforced their positions on emission reductions, as negotiations on a new global climate deal entered their third day.
The United States and China exchanged arguments at the talks, underscoring the abiding suspicion between the world's two largest carbon polluters about the sincerity of their pledges to control emissions.
US chief negotiator Todd Stern urged China to stand behind its promise to slow the growth of the country's carbon output and make the declaration part of an international climate change agreement.
China rejected that demand, and renewed its criticism of the US for failing to meet its 17-year-old commitment to provide financial aid to developing countries and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases warming the Earth.
"What they should do is some deep soul-searching," said Yu Qingtai, China's chief climate negotiator.
Stern said the problem of emissions could not be surmounted without "significant action" by China.
"The country whose emissions are going up dramatically, really dramatically, is China and that's the reason that we can't have an agreement that doesn't have a real commitment by China," Stern told reporters.
Yu said his nation would seek binding pollution targets for developed countries but reject similar requirements for itself at the summit.
He said it would be unfair for all countries to be required to combat global warming since most of the environmental damage had been caused by developed nations during their industrialisation over the past 100 to 200 years.
The remarks during separate news conferences reflected the heavy lifting that remains in the 10 days before 110 heads of state and government conclude the summit, which aims to create a political framework for a treaty next year to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
US President Barack Obama helped break the ice in the troubled negotiations last month, saying he would deliver a pledge at Copenhagen to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by around 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
It will be the first time the US has committed to a reduction target.
China responded a day later, announcing it would voluntarily reduce the carbon intensity of its industry by up to 45 percent, meaning its emissions would continue to grow but at a rate lower than the economy.
Stern said China's announcement boosted optimism before the conference, but didn't go far enough.
The Chinese delegate accused the Americans and other wealthy countries of insincerity when they signed the 1992 climate convention promising voluntary carbon reductions.
The convention was amended five years later in Kyoto, making reductions mandatory for most industrial countries.
The United States rejected the protocol because it did not include China or India.
Meanwhile Brazil, another major developing country, said in its first news briefing at the conference that its main hope for Copenhagen was for a strong and binding agreement.
"Brazil wants and has as a goal to leave Copenhagen with an agreement that is robust enough, strong enough, that is good for the climate, so that it can be a legally binding agreement," Brazil's lead climate negotiator Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado said.
"We are not interested in a weak and bad climate agreement becoming legally binding."
At a separate event, a Kankanaey-Igorot indigenous activist from Bolivia performed a special ceremony during a presentation by indigenous Bolivians of a proposal for a declaration of rights for Mother Earth.
The event called for what the group called a revision of the capitalist system to save the planet.
"It's time for us to decide whether we want to continue with a system of capitalism that destroys our Mother Earth or whether we should change the model of capitalism to defend life," spokesperson Rafael Quispe Flores said.
The United States and China exchanged arguments at the talks, underscoring the abiding suspicion between the world's two largest carbon polluters about the sincerity of their pledges to control emissions.
US chief negotiator Todd Stern urged China to stand behind its promise to slow the growth of the country's carbon output and make the declaration part of an international climate change agreement.
China rejected that demand, and renewed its criticism of the US for failing to meet its 17-year-old commitment to provide financial aid to developing countries and to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases warming the Earth.
"What they should do is some deep soul-searching," said Yu Qingtai, China's chief climate negotiator.
Stern said the problem of emissions could not be surmounted without "significant action" by China.
"The country whose emissions are going up dramatically, really dramatically, is China and that's the reason that we can't have an agreement that doesn't have a real commitment by China," Stern told reporters.
Yu said his nation would seek binding pollution targets for developed countries but reject similar requirements for itself at the summit.
He said it would be unfair for all countries to be required to combat global warming since most of the environmental damage had been caused by developed nations during their industrialisation over the past 100 to 200 years.
The remarks during separate news conferences reflected the heavy lifting that remains in the 10 days before 110 heads of state and government conclude the summit, which aims to create a political framework for a treaty next year to succeed the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.
US President Barack Obama helped break the ice in the troubled negotiations last month, saying he would deliver a pledge at Copenhagen to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by around 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020.
It will be the first time the US has committed to a reduction target.
China responded a day later, announcing it would voluntarily reduce the carbon intensity of its industry by up to 45 percent, meaning its emissions would continue to grow but at a rate lower than the economy.
Stern said China's announcement boosted optimism before the conference, but didn't go far enough.
The Chinese delegate accused the Americans and other wealthy countries of insincerity when they signed the 1992 climate convention promising voluntary carbon reductions.
The convention was amended five years later in Kyoto, making reductions mandatory for most industrial countries.
The United States rejected the protocol because it did not include China or India.
Meanwhile Brazil, another major developing country, said in its first news briefing at the conference that its main hope for Copenhagen was for a strong and binding agreement.
"Brazil wants and has as a goal to leave Copenhagen with an agreement that is robust enough, strong enough, that is good for the climate, so that it can be a legally binding agreement," Brazil's lead climate negotiator Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado said.
"We are not interested in a weak and bad climate agreement becoming legally binding."
At a separate event, a Kankanaey-Igorot indigenous activist from Bolivia performed a special ceremony during a presentation by indigenous Bolivians of a proposal for a declaration of rights for Mother Earth.
The event called for what the group called a revision of the capitalist system to save the planet.
"It's time for us to decide whether we want to continue with a system of capitalism that destroys our Mother Earth or whether we should change the model of capitalism to defend life," spokesperson Rafael Quispe Flores said.
Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world
