Still tough going for negotiations

Although the international community has reached consensus on the importance of fighting climate change, negotiations on the issue have been tough.

Developing countries maintain that developed countries, which have stayed ahead of the rest of the world in industrialization for more than a century, should take the lead in "helping our planet cool down."

Developing countries lay emphasis on common but differentiated responsibilities, while developed countries ask the developing world to undertake more obligations.

Even developed countries themselves maintain different stances on the issue.

The European Union (EU), which has agreed to cut emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, wants big polluters such as the United States to agree to halve emissions by 2050.

But the United States has refused to set a quantified target for emission cuts, arguing environmental protection should not be achieved at the expense of economic growth.

According to the roadmap adopted at the UN climate conference in Indonesia's Bali last December, negotiations on climate change should be carried out within two years and a new draft should be ready for approval at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.

But two subsequent rounds of negotiations in Bangkok and Bonn failed to achieve concrete results, and the climate change conferences in Hawaii, Paris and Seoul earlier this year were also unable to create much headway.