Durban COP17: Connie Hedegaard puts pressure on China, US and India

With only a few hours of negotiations left at the marathon United Nations climate change talks in Durban, the European Union's climate chief made an impassioned call to the remaining large economies holding out on a deal to join its plan. China, the US and India are the three remaining major economies that have yet to make clear signals on the EU proposal, which is a roadmap to begin negotiations on a new legally binding treaty on global warming that would kick in from 2020. Connie Hedegaard, the EU climate change commissioner, told the conference: "We need to get them on board today – we don't have many hours left. The world is waiting for them." At least 120 countries are backing the roadmap, that would see countries set a deadline of 2015 to sign a new global legally binding treaty – the first since the 1997 Kyoto protocol – with emissions targets that would apply from 2020. The fortnight-long negotiations are scheduled to end on Friday night, though they may carry on into Saturday morning. The date of 2020 has been fixed on – even though some environmental groups think it is too late – because most governments, including all of the world's major developed and developing economies, already have national emissions targets to run until the end of the decade. These targets were agreed at the Copenhagen summit of 2009, and the Cancún meeting last year, but they are not internationally legally binding like the way the Kyoto protocol. Countries have been anxious to point out that, although the current pledges are deemed inadequate by scientists to avert the threat of dangerous global warming, they mean that countries are taking action in the short and medium term. "It's not a question of just talking about what to do, it's about doing it now and at the same time talking about what to do next," explained Brazil's ambassador, Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado. The US has taken a subtly different approach to the negotiations in the past day, with the special envoy for climate change, Todd Stern, speaking approvingly of the roadmap – a term he has avoided before, as the US dislikes the implication that there is a set route with a strict timetable and clear destination. Instead, the US prefers to have a "process" of negotiations without strict time limits, during which the final result will be worked out. Stern's office was quick to clarify that his position was still that the US was not supporting a new legally binding treaty: "Todd Stern said in his press conference today that the United States could support a process to negotiate a new climate accord. He did not say that the United States supports a legally binding agreement as the result of that process. The EU has supported both a process and the result being a legally binding agreement." The US will also not support the EU's call for a deadline of 2015 for the new negotiations to finish, by which time new emissions targets should be agreed that will apply after 2020. Paul Bledsoe, of the US Bipartisan Policy Centre, and a former official in the Clinton White House, said: "The US does not like to be seen as a follower [of someone else's plan], it wants to be seen as a leader." Both China and the US are due to hold a press conference later this afternoon in Durban. India's stance is still unclear, with some reports suggesting the chief negotiator had insisted the country had never been against a deal, but was keeping its options open until the content of the roadmap was clearer. One close observer of the talks said India was concerned to keep the UN financing process that directs funds from carbon trading from rich to poor countries, called the clean development mechanism [CDM]. "India really wants the CDM," he said. China has long said it does not want international finance for its emissions reductions. However, it is under intense diplomatic pressure as so many of the world's other major emerging economies have backed the plan, including Brazil, South Africa, Argentina and most of Africa. China has long regarded itself as a close ally and often a leader of many of these countries, and to split off from them by denying the chance for a global climate deal would be diplomatically painful. Hedegaard said: "Half of the Basics [Brazil, South Africa, India and China] are now behind [the roadmap]." Hedegaard was also keen to stress the leading role the EU has taken in galvanising these talks, which were so downbeat to begin with that even the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, acknowledged the low expectations in his speech on Tuesday. He said: "It may be true, as many say: the ultimate goal of a comprehensive and binding climate change agreement may be beyond our reach – for now." Hedegaard told a press conference on Friday the situation was radically different: "Six months ago, hardly anyone was taking about the long-term climate change regime, and what should follow Copenhagen and Cancún. Now an agreement is within reach."