The 10-day-old climate talks ran into disputes and paralysis as they entered a critical stage Wednesday, just two days before US President Barack Obama and more than 100 other national leaders hope to sign a historic agreement to fight global warming. Poorer nations stalled the talks in resistance to what they saw as efforts by the rich to impose decisions falling short of strong commitments to reduce greenhouse gases and to help those countries hurt by climate change. Conference observers said, however, that negotiators still had time to reach agreements. Outside the meeting site in Copenhagen's suburbs, police fired pepper spray and beat protesters with batons as hundreds of demonstrators sought to disrupt the 193-nation conference, the latest action in days of demonstrations to demand “climate justice” - firm steps to combat global warming. Police said 260 protesters were detained. Earlier, behind closed doors, negotiators dealing with core issues debated until just before dawn without setting new goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions or for financing poorer countries' efforts to cope with coming climate change, key elements of any deal. “I regret to report we have been unable to reach agreement,” John Ashe of Antigua, chairman of one negotiating group, told the conference. In those talks, the American delegation apparently objected to a proposed text it felt might bind the United States prematurely to reducing greenhouse gas emissions before Congress acts on the required legislation. US envoys insisted, for example, on replacing the word “shall” with the conditional “should.” Later, faced with complaints from developing nations about such changes, the Danish leaders of the talks crafted what they hoped would be a compromise text. Even before that was circulated, however, the unhappy nations - the Group of 77 and China - met separately to decide on a position. “They are unhappy about these texts being handed to them from above,” an African delegate said outside the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. The latest dispute highlighted the undercurrent of distrust developing nations have for the richer countries in the long-running climate talks. But veteran observers said it was too early to give up on the talks, which are supposed to end Friday with Obama and the other leaders approving a final agreement. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez echoed the protesters' sentiments when he told the assembly: “If the climate was a bank, a capitalist bank, they would have saved it.” There were some steps forward, too. The United States, Australia, France, Japan, Norway and Britain pledged $3.5 billion in the next three years to a program aimed at protecting rain forests. The US portion was $1 billion. US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the money would be available for developing countries that come up with ambitious plans to slow and eventually reverse deforestation - an important part of the talks because it's thought to account for about 20 percent of global greenhouse emissions. The talks so far have been marked by sharp disagreements between China and the United States, and between rich and poor nations. After nine days of largely unproductive talks, the lower-level delegates were handing off the disputes to environment ministers in the two-week conference's critical second phase. Hundreds of protesters marched on the suburban Bella Center, where lines of riot police waited in protective cordons. Some demonstrators said they wanted to take over the global conference and turn it into a “people's assembly.” As they approached police lines, they were hit with pepper spray.
