Copenhagen/Washington, Dec 19 (DPA) Global players are “close to a deal” on slowing climate change, sources in Copenhagen said.
Sources familiar with the negotiations said the US, China, India, the European Union (EU) and other major polluters were still negotiating on how much “fast-start” money rich countries should give to help poorer nations deal with global warming.

Those negotiations followed reports out of Washington saying US President Barack Obama had reached an agreement with China.

The two sides had been at odds for much of the day over the question of whether third countries should be able to inspect each other’s greenhouse-gas emission claims.

“We are minutes from a deal if nothing unexpected happens,” diplomats close to the talks told DPA.

The development followed a series of 11th hour talks between major global players on the sidelines of a UN climate change conference in the Danish capital.

Diplomats had earlier told DPA that the US and the EU had been working on a skeleton proposal, to be presented for approval to a select group of global players.

While the agreement was believed to endorse calls for global warming to be limited to within two degrees centigrade against pre-industrial levels, insiders said the compromise would not be as ambitious as UN officials and environmentalists had hoped for prior to the start of the Copenhagen conference.

One of the most controversial issues at stake involved setting a deadline for a legally-binding agreement to come into force.