Obama, Wen offer no new emissions cuts at summit

President Barack Obama and other world leaders took stalled climate talks into their own hands today, holding an emergency meeting to come up with a political agreement to salvage a conference marked by deep divisions between rich and poor countries.

But neither Obama nor Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao offered any new commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions as they addressed the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen. And Wen skipped the high-level meeting, sending an envoy instead.

With the talks in disarray, many delegates had been looking toward China and the U.S. — the world's two largest carbon polluters — to deepen their pledges to cut emissions to salvage a deal in Copenhagen.

"We are ready to get this done today but there has to be movement on all sides to recognize that is better for us to act rather than talk," Obama said, insisting on a transparent way to monitor each nation's pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Wen told delegates that China's voluntary targets of reducing its carbon intensity by 40 to 45 percent will require "tremendous efforts."

"We will honor our word with real action," Wen said.

China has been criticized at the two-week summit for not offering stronger carbon emissions targets and for resisting international monitoring of its actions. After the impromptu high-level meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said progress in the climate talks was being held back by China.

An early draft of the climate agreement, obtained by The Associated Press, called for rich countries to mobilize $30 billion over the next three years to help poor countries cope with the effects of global warming, scaling up to $100 billion a year by 2020.

(Via AP)