UN chief hoping for a breakthrough

Gather a hundred heads of state in the same place, get them talking privately among themselves and hope a global climate pact starts to gel.




That's the gamble the UN chief is taking, organizing an unusual high-level summit next week intended to build momentum for striking a deal this year on mandatory worldwide cuts in greenhouse gases.



"The very fact that more than 100 leaders from all around the world are gathered in one place — have you ever seen in climate change negotiations that such a large number of heads of state are gathered together at one place at one day?" UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Thursday while taking questions at a monthly news conference.



Less than three months remain before 180 nations meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and negotiations are proving difficult. The Kyoto accord has had mixed success in binding 37 industrial countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent of 1990 levels by 2012.



Rather than hold actual negotiations, Ban's one-day event encourages world leaders to chat informally in round-table sessions and try to collectively leapfrog beyond the confines of nationalist interests.



Adding to the heightened expectations is that US President Barack Obama's first speech to the United Nations will come at this summit and deal solely with climate change, one day before he and other heads of states and ministers begin delivering their broader messages to the 192-nation General Assembly at UN headquarters in New York.



"Now, I believe that almost all the leaders of the world, they realize that this an issue of great urgency," Ban said. "I expect even though this is not a negotiating forum, the leaders will really demonstrate their strong political will."