Singh, Wen hold talks ahead of plenary at the climate summit

Sagar Kulkarni
Copenhagen, Dec 18 (PTI) As negotiators struggled to
finalise a draft for the climate summit, Prime Minister of
India Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao
Friday held talks in a bid to consolidate the position of
developing countries ahead of the world leaders' meeting here.
In his opening remarks during his meeting with Wen, Singh
recalled that the two countries have been cooperating at
various fora, including the G-20.
"We need to continue the cooperation," said the Prime
Minister, who arrived in the Danish capital late Thursday
night to take part in the high-level segment of the 12-day UN
climate talks.
Besides Singh and Wen, US President Barack Obama,
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President
Nicholas Sarkozy are among the 110 world leaders who would
attend the 15th Conference of Parties (COP) on its final day
Friday.
The developing countries have been resisting attempts by
the rich nations to set aside the Kyoto Protocol, which sets
legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets for
industrialised nations.
The 1997 protocol also has a strong compliance mechanism
which penalises the rich nations if they do not meet emission
reduction targets agreed upon by them. (More) PTI