The talks have been temporarily suspended:
Prospects for an agreement to control global warming are being jeopardised by a wholly new phenomenon in international relations – a confrontation between the main polluting countries and the greatest potential victims of climate change at the Copenhagen summit.
It caused the main talks to be suspended on Wednesday at the demand of low-lying island countries that face being wiped off the map by the rising seas brought about by a warmer world – and the stand-off may well turn out to be the unexpected shape of things to come.
Until now, negotiations of new global deals — whether on the environment, poverty and development, or trade — have boiled down to bargaining between developed and developing countries. But now both rich countries and rapidly industrialising nations, like China and India, are for the first time finding themselves on the same side, in the face of a growing revolt by the poor and vulnerable.
The seeds of the new line-up were sown at a special one-day climate summit called by President Obama alongside the G8 meeting in L’Aquila Italy this summer, when the major polluters agreed that global warming should be kept below two degrees centigrade.
They have proceeded to negotiate an agreement on that basis and were making good progress.
But the vulnerable became convinced that any increase above 1.5 degrees would be disastrous for them.
The rest here.