China says an operational climate agreement is unlikely in Copenhagen

China has said that it sees no chance of reaching an operational climate agreement in Copenhagen and that only a short political text is the likely outcome, according to an unnamed Chinese negotiator quoted by the Reuters news agency.

The negotiator is quoted as saying that the COP15 Climate Summit can end with ‘a short political declaration of some kind’. Nonetheless, the source says that negotiators are still trying to bring about a breakthrough in the negotiations which could result in an operational agreement.

The statement from the Chinese delegation comes as heads of state and government are on their way to the Danish capital for the final two days of the Climate Summit. Denmark is currently attempting to simplify several agreement drafts.

Negotiations ground to a halt yesterday on a point of order. The Danish presidency was expected to present the first official draft of an agreement for discussion – but developing countries angrily raised a lengthy point of order as they had not been involved in the draft process.

(Edited by Julian Isherwood, Politiken.dk, 17/12/2009)