Demonstrators sit on the ground as police surround them at a rally outside the UN Climate Change Conference

Copenhagen Protest

While anarchists and left-wing activists fought running street battles with police in the Danish capital, the split that the Copenhagen climate summit has exposed between wealthy and impoverished nations was laid bare with news that ministers from a select clique of 40 countries were dining together away from the summit venue.

The meal, held behind closed doors at an undisclosed location, was viewed as a last-ditch attempt to cobble together a politically acceptable deal after a week of discussions marred by infighting, and “greener than thou” posturing over who is most to blame for global warming. After flying out officials in droves, ministers are desperate to have some kind of concrete document for when international heads of state arrive for the final stages of the two-week conference on Thursday.

Leading them will be Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has fashioned himself as a global champion in the battle against climate change, and who is arriving ahead of other top statesmen in a bid to stamp his authority on the meeting.

However, so far the massed ranks of officials from 194 different countries have failed to make any substantive agreements on even the most basic goals. Arguments are still raging over targets and deadlines for limiting global temperature rise, as well as the extent to which rich nations should fund green projects for poor ones, and whether emerging economic superpowers like China should balance green considerations against much-needed development. Washington and Beijing have also traded insults over whether China, which has seen living standards rocket in recent years, should fund its own green measures or get hand-outs from an international pot financed largely by the West.

With signs of an irreconcilable split growing between the large and powerful and the small and poor, last night’s dinner – attended by countries including Britain, the US, China and India – was viewed as an attempt by the bigger, better-off nations to strike a deal in private.

“A lot of the deals are done in back rooms but there has to be transparency at the same time,” said Keith Allott, of the World Wildlife Fund, which claims smaller nations are being left out of the process.