Copenhagen, Dec 14 (DPA) Formal climate change negotiations in Copenhagen were suspended Monday amid African concerns that the chair was not pushing for a legally binding agreement.
The president of the United Nations conference, Connie Hedegaard decided to hold an informal round of talks with regional blocs in a bid to overcome the impasse.

The UN’s climate chief, Yvo de Boer, said Hedegaard had convened “open-ended informal talks allowing (environment) ministers to focus on the key issues that need to be resolved”.

Jeremy Hobbs of the charity Oxfam International, said: “Africa has pulled the emergency cord to avoid a train crash at the end of the week.”

“Poor countries want to see an outcome which guarantees sharp emissions reductions, yet rich countries are trying to delay discussions on the only mechanism we have to deliver this - the Kyoto Protocol,” Hobbs said.

Negotiations in the Danish city are proceeding on a so-called two-track approach - one aimed at revising and updating the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on legally binding greenhouse gas emission cuts, and a second track extended to all countries, including those which did not ratify Kyoto, such as the US.

But African nations say the host nation is not paying enough attention to the Kyoto track.

“We can never accept the killing of the Kyoto protocol, it will mean the killing of Africa,” said one official from Mali.

The world’s biggest polluters, China and the US, have both expressed reservations about adopting a legally binding text in Copenhagen.