George Lyon MEP in Copenhagen: Face saving, not planet saving agreement

As talks in Copenhagen continue this evening, at least for the moment, spirits are rather low.

America and China produce over 50% of the world's carbon emissions: any deal here tonight will require them work together. Unfortunately, there appears to be stalemate.

Prior to today there was some hope that the US had come to the negotiating table ready to play ball. Hillary Clinton suggested that they might come forward with an offer of more money and concrete commitments.

Unfortunately that looks like it was all posturing. President Obama instead used his speech simply to assert that the US is ready to do a deal if China and others are prepared to be transparent.

China is refusing to budge. There's a bit of a culture clash here as the Chinese perceive international monitoring of their efforts as "snooping" and a breach of sovereignty, or at least that is the reason they are giving for refusing to open up.

That is a real shame. China has to understand that economic development should go hand in hand with political maturity. It is in their own interests to play a full role in international affairs, including the fight against climate change.

The draft Copenhagen Accord continues to look like a face saving, not a planet saving agreement.

Even the leaders' "family photograph" has now been postponed indefinitely. We wait for more news.

George Lyon MEP in Copenhagen: There will be no climate deal

I've just come from two separate briefings, one with the EU delegation and one with their Indian counterparts. Different briefings but the same message - there will be no climate deal.

Details are sketchy at the moment but the EU delegation has told me that China is digging its heels in over binding targets and the future inspection of those targets. There is a leaked draft agreement floating around that is ridiculously weak, but China would not even agree to sign up to that.

This is a huge shock. As I have stated in previous posts, it was becoming increasingly unlikely that a legally binding deal could be reached but it was always thought a political agreement would be finalised before world leaders leave Copenhagen.

However, now it looks as though, rather than being in deadlock, the talks are just dead.

World leaders are expected to leave the conference in the next couple of hours. I've just bumped into Ed Miliband, Sarkozy, Merkel and Barroso leaving a meeting, no doubt wondering what to say. Glum does not go far enough to describe the way they looked.

Of course, now the blame game will start. The EU and US are blaming China. Developing nations are blaming developed nations.

The attitude of the developing nations can be summed up by a conversation I've just had with a member of the Indian delegation. Agriculture is India's biggest industry. Limiting the planet to 2C of warming would cut 14 million tonnes of wheat out of their economy.

He told me: "Why would we sign up to something that will restrict our growth. We are not going to pay for the growth of western countries over the last century."

This is what the Copenhagen Climate Conference, heralded by some as the last chance to save the planet, has come to.

UPDATE: 1837 CET

I have a leaked copy of what the Indian delegation has called a 'holding statement' in my hands. It is tentatively called the Copenhagen Accord.

There are no binding targets, it allows developing or non-annex 1 countries to stick to targets set domestically, there is no transparent inspection in place to monitor those targets and it says that a review of this process will be undertaken in 2016 - a full six years after binding targets for all should be in place.

It is staggeringly weak. Can world leaders really pass this off as a substantial agreement? More to follow...

George Lyon MEP in Copenhagen: Obama's speech moves US position by inches when we need him to go the extra mile

What did we learn from President Obama's address to the Copenhagen conference? The answer to that has to be 'not much'.

The scheduled proceedings were delayed by two hours as Obama held talks with nineteen other world leaders in a closed session. We thought that we might get some answers after they emerged and Obama took to the podium but no, not even a hint of progress.

We got the same resounding rhetoric from the President. He told us that he believes now "is the time for the nations and the people of the world to come together behind a common purpose." He added that world leaders were ready to get the job done today.

Good, because many delegates and even more protesters think they might have to wait to COP16 in Mexico for a legally binding agreement.

What we heard from Obama was not enough at this late stage. To give him credit, Obama has thrown down the gauntlet to China on the transparency issue and that gave a certain amount of positive momentum to proceedings yesterday.

But there has been very little movement in terms of targets from America. At the start of the process they said they would commit to a 17% cut in CO2 emissions below 2005 levels by 2020. This equates to about 4% below 1990 levels.

Let's put that in context. The African delegation, who walked out earlier in the week, wants a commitment to 40% cuts below 1990 levels. That is a huge gulf to bridge with only hours remaining of the Conference.

I hoped for more movement towards the European Parliament's position of 20:2020 - 20% reduction by 2020, with room to move up to 30% if other big emitters commit to big cuts.

President Obama's speech moved America forward by inches only. With the clock ticking we need every country to go the extra mile.

George Lyon MEP in Copenhagen: Finally arrived on the train, but will negotiations stay on track

I’ve just arrived at the Bella Centre in Copenhagen for the United Nations climate change conference. After a nineteen hour train journey across the snow covered tracks of northern Europe it is a welcome relief to arrive at the destination I’ve been building up to since the European elections in June.

Of course, others have been building up to this Summit for much, much longer. It is now twelve years since the Kyoto conference – a city that has become synonymous with international efforts to combat climate change, but also the ultimate failure of those efforts.

The problem with the Kyoto Protocol was that it omitted the two world's largest CO2 producers in the United States and China. The former because of Congressional alarm at pesky environmentalists dictating terms to the world’s only remaining superpower which had the potential to harm continued economic growth. The latter because it was still considered a ‘developing’ or non-annex 1 country and so was not bound by the targets set.

Without the participation of the two giants of the new century, Kyoto lacked the authority to back up its intent. But it did set the precedent for international action on climate change, and while it quickly lost momentum and credibility its long term legacy may be that world leaders learn from their mistakes.

That is the context in which the Copenhagen Conference is set. As world leaders arrive, it is still very much in the balance whether a global deal will be reached.

I hope to bring you the latest news from behind the scenes over the next couple of days on The Steamie. You can also follow me on Twitter – just follow @georgelyonmep