US President Barack Obama joined a mini-summit of the world's most powerful leaders dedicated to fighting climate change in Copenhagen on Friday amid tensions between rich and poor states, DPA reported.
The US president is seen as one of the key power-brokers in bids to forge a global deal on combating global warming at United Nations talks in Copenhagen. Officials said on Friday that the talks threatened to end in stalemate in a row between developed and developing states.
"China, India, Sudan and the Group of 77 (G77) developing nations are not even being constructive - they're still bringing up procedural questions. It makes you wonder if they even want there to be a deal," one source close to the talks said.
Arriving from Copenhagen's airport, Obama headed straight into the meeting with leaders from key states such as Britain, France, Germany, India and Brazil to cheers from watching delegates.
The meeting, the second such mini-summit within eight hours, was aimed at drafting a political agreement on the key policies needed to fight climate change, such as greenhouse-gas emissions cuts and finance for developing states.
But diplomats said that disagreements between the US and China, in particular, threatened to derail the talks ahead of a crunch meeting of around 120 heads of state and government from around the world.
Obama joins climate mini-summit as tensions rise
