UN environment chief Achim Steiner warns of high cost of climate delays

• Plea for world leaders to avoid Copenhagen failure
• Deadlock poses enormous 'human and financial risks'
The Guardian 16 Nov 09;

The likely delays in sealing a global deal to fight climate change would have a "human cost", and increase the risks of great harm to the planet and the economic costs of dealing with it, the head of the UN environment programme said today.

Achim Steiner also said there was an "extremely high" risk that the UN-hosted talks would drift into deadlock if the summit in Copenhagen next month failed to deliver a meaningful agreement. "The world has been focused on this moment for years," he told the Guardian.

"There have been hundreds of meetings and summits and workshops. If you then take that momentum out you run the risk of entering into an open-ended process and before you know if it you are in the same situation as the Doha round of the World Trade Organisation talks.

"There is a moral hazard in any attempt to further delay action on climate change," he added. "Political leaders in Copenhagen will have to explain in a credible way to the 2bn-3bn people who are living on the frontline of climate change why they could not reach a deal."

Steiner added: "I believe that a deal [in Copenhagen] is still do-able. But any delay has real cost implications in economic, social and human terms and those implications must be at the forefront of the people's minds as they go to Copenhagen."

On Sunday the US president, Barack Obama, acknowledged that a legally binding deal was impossible in Copenhagen. He needs a reluctant Senate to pass domestic laws to cut greenhouse emissions before being able to agree to an international deal, a requirement that has stalled the talks. Obama gave his support to a Danish plan to delay any deal to mid-2010. His comments were widely received as a blow to hopes of a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen, but senior figures said today a deal was still possible.

Ed Miliband, the UK climate change secretary, said Copenhagen could still deliver a "comprehensive" and "ambitious" agreement and lead quickly to a legally binding treaty. He spoke to the Guardian at international talks in the Danish capital aimed at increasing political momentum prior to the full UN meeting next month.

"An ambitious deal is still possible," he said. "It has to include all the major issues: targets for carbon emissions, including mid-term targets, finance, technology, forestry, and crucially, a very clear and short track to a legally binding treaty."

Sources within the British delegation characterised yesterday's negotiations as "anxious" and "urgent" and earlier cited "a large amount of mistrust" from some developing countries.

Despite pessimism about whether the US would be able to make commitments at December's summit, they remained optimistic about the US proposing bigger cuts in emissions in future.

In response to claims that the Danish plan threatened to turn the Copenhagen summit into a mere "photo opportunity", Denmark's climate and energy minister, Connie Hedegaard said her resolve to get a legally binding deal was intact.

"I believe it is important that Copenhagen sets a deadline," she said. "We have to do that, so we do not end up with something that goes on for years and years and years."

In the US key negotiators warned that President Obama must deliver on his environmental agenda by early 2010 if there is to be a chance of a global treaty.

In London the foreign secretary, David Miliband, also said there were grounds for hope: "I don't accept we should write off Copenhagen at all," Miliband said. "It shouldn't be just another summit that produces a string of warm words."

Additional reporting: Julian Borger