Definitive Durban deal looks increasingly distant

Chances of a deal have receded given the pressure of the clock and an agonizingly slow process to untangle a web of issues.

“There are clearly dangers in the whole process,” said British environment minister Chris Huhne.

“While the political coalition is there to get a result, we are almost literally running out of time,” he told journalists in a midday briefing.

German Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen concurred. “The delay is very critical ... It is very doubtful whether we will succeed.”

On the table at the yearly marathon of the 194-nation U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is a mastera plan for strengthening action against greenhouse gases blamed for disrupting Earth's weather systems.

Pushed by the European Union, the scheme would assure the survival of the Kyoto Protocol, a landmark treaty defended by poor countries but increasingly dismissed by rich ones as out of date.

By 2015, according to the EU scheme, UNFCCC parties would reach a legally binding agreement that, for the first time, would bring all economies — including the emerging giants and the United States — under the same roof.

A draft text close to the EU position put forward overnight by host country South Africa was widely praised as “balanced.”

“We thought it was something that could form the basis of an ultimate conclusion,” Huhne said.

But a cluster of other problems, including discord over a proposed Green Climate Fund to help vulnerable countries, threaten to unravel the complex talks.

With Durban's International Convention Center set to close on Saturday evening, time pressures mounted — and memories revived of the Copenhagen Summit.

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