Copenhagen (Platts)--10Dec2009/528 am EST/1028 GMT

Negotiators finally began editing sections of text that will form part of a final Copenhagen climate change declaration even as reverberations from the controversial Danish draft communique continued to echo around the packed conference halls.

But even as they got down to word by word and line by line editing Wednesday, the tiny Pacific island of Tuvalu caused a brief suspension of formal negotiations when it insisted that the two week meeting, which ends with a political summit December 18, conclude with a legally binding treaty--something very few people see as a serious possibility.

And Sudanese ambassador Lumumba Di-Aping, speaking on behalf of the G77/China group which actually represents some 130 developing countries, kept the Danish controversy going by calling it a backdoor attempt to reimpose colonialism on the developing world.

"The Danish text is an extremely dangerous document for developing countries," he told a news conference. "It is the usual divide and rule." Di-Aping Tuesday rejected the annual $10 billion fund for developing countries proposed by US President Barack Obama from 2012 as just about enough to buy coffins for the climate dead.

Developing countries are calling for hundreds of billions of dollars a year to help them both adapt to the inevitable consequences of climate change and start to tackle its causes.

The Danish draft covered all the major topics of adaptation, mitigation, finance mechanisms and technology transfer and called for immediate action on all fronts--a call echoed repeatedly by UN climate change chief Yvo de Boer--but contained no figures and put more onus on the poorer nations to act.

What angered the developing nations more than anything was that as a draft even before the final negotiations began Monday it suggested that a political move was being made to bypass the United Nations talks altogether.

On Wednesday de Boer said the document had been among several circulated at a restricted meeting--at which Di-Aping had been present--shortly before the conference began, it had never had formal status and had been withdrawn. "A number of countries were worried about the text because they saw it as unbalanced," he told reporters.

Asked if G77 countries were so upset at the perceived slight to the UN process that they might quit the conference in protest, Di-Aping said they would not because they saw the meeting as too important.

BRINGING THE US 'INTO THE FOLD'

A key issue at the talks is whether they will agree an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, produce a new treaty that brings in the US, or both. Most developing nations insist that Kyoto must continue, while most developed nations argue that as the US will never sign Kyoto some other means must be found of bringing it into the fold.

Underscoring that conundrum Wednesday, US delegation head Todd Stern said a deal was within reach but not with the US within Kyoto.

"We are certainly not going to become part of the Kyoto Protocol...That is not on the table," he told a news conference, adding Washington could be party to a new agreement that included elements of the protocol such as carbon trading and offsets.

Echoing the views of many developed countries, Stern said the initial aim had been for a legally binding treaty to emerge from Copenhagen but that circumstances now made that very unlikely.

He said the advantage of a political deal was that it could be put into effect immediately whereas a legal one had to be ratified nationally. However, "efforts for a legal agreement should go forward at full speed," he said. "I can't say when that will happen, but it should be soon," he added.

Stern also insisted that any final deal had to involve commitments on emission reductions from China which was now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and expanding rapidly. But he added that he did not foresee any public funds for adaptation or mitigation going to China.

Negotiators hope that by the end of this week they will have more or less honed texts covering adaptation, mitigation, technology transfer, deforestation and capacity building.

Ministers are expected to meet over the weekend--ahead of the so-called high level political section of the conference which starts next Wednesday--to inject some adrenalin into the process.

--Jeremy Lovell, Jeremy_lovell@platts.com