HOPES for a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions increasingly rest on the leadership of the US and China after both said they would send leaders to Copenhagen earlier than planned to wrest control of the acrimonious climate conference.
The US announced Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would make an unscheduled trip to the Danish capital today and Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had brought forward his visit to arrive late yesterday.
They will join US President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and about 115 other leaders on Friday to discuss a proposed ''political agreement'' which they hope will lead to a treaty next year.
The announcement of the visits came as Mr Rudd landed in Copenhagen and immediately warned that poor countries must sign up to a binding treaty for a deal to be possible. He also warned there was ''absolutely'' no guarantee of success at Copenhagen.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi last night offered a way out by spelling out a plan for a climate finance system, financed by levies on international aviation and shipping, that would start with an annual $US10 billion ($A11 billion) next year and rise to $US100 billion by 2020. The idea is backed by England and France. More than half would help adaptation to climate change in the least developed countries in Africa and small island states.
He conceded his proposal would disappoint some Africans, but said it was important that Copenhagen ended in a deal that all countries could agree to, otherwise there would be no agreement.
As Mr Rudd held initial meetings with the leaders of Denmark, Britain and Ethiopia, a closed UN negotiation session that continued through the night descended into chaos as a raft of changes were forced through to water down a proposed UN draft text.
The text was to form the basis for negotiations between ministers and leaders in the summit's final days. But a meeting of 25 environment ministers, including Australia's Penny Wong, that was to discuss the text was postponed due to objections from developing nations. Brazil, China, India and the G77 developing countries bloc last night objected negotiators' work being overridden by politicians.
Developed and developing nations remain deeply divided over the structure and substance of a deal. The former want the rich to extend the Kyoto Protocol that limits emissions from industrialised nations and to promise much deeper emissions cuts. The latter want a treaty that covers all countries.
A possible solution is a ''two-track process'' that would result in an extension of the Kyoto Protocol and an agreement to work on a second, linked treaty covering all countries. But several countries object to this model.
China accused industrialised nations including Australia of claiming they supported the continuation of the Kyoto Protocol in public while trying to ''kill'' it in private negotiations.
''The delegates might speak completely different things at press briefings or in their interactions with journalists, but I can tell you they say quite different things in closed-door meetings,'' Chinese special representative Yu Qingtai said.
Climate Institute chief executive John Connor said the outlook was grim, with most of the work left to leaders. ''While there are very legitimate concerns among developing countries, some attacks on Australia and other developed countries have frankly been a smokescreen to avoid international scrutiny of their own commitments,'' he said.
He said Australia had given poor nations an excuse not to act by failing to clearly say whether it would back the five-year extension of Kyoto.
But Greenpeace said the US was to blame. ''The industrialised country ministers appear to have left their political will at home,'' spokeswoman Kaisa Kosonen said.
With the central negotiations in deadlock, many peripheral issues have been deferred to next year, including whether to include contentious carbon capture and storage technology as an offset that can generate carbon credits. Australia strongly backed its inclusion, Brazil opposed.
The chances of a deal increasingly hinge on meetings between the US, China and India amid speculation they could reach an agreement allowing a lower level of monitoring of developing nations' policies in return for acceptance of lower-than-expected US emissions targets.
Indian Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh cancelled a meeting with Senator Wong on developing countries' emissions and whether they should be open to scrutiny. He said he had told the US that India was prepared to submit internationally funded projects to UN scrutiny, but other policies would be internally monitored.
Mr Qingtai said China's emissions would not be subjected to UN monitoring. US negotiator Todd Stern said there would be no deal without international oversight.
More than 230 protesters were detained after police used tear gas to disperse them.
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