AUSTRALIA has appealed to China to step up to the leadership role expected of a global superpower, as a standoff between the US and China deadlocked the Copenhagen climate change talks.
The 48 environment ministers already in Copenhagen were meeting away from the conference centre yesterday to consider a political deal for two separate treaties.
Kevin Rudd has been hitting the phones to try to secure a political-level deal, speaking with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and developing-nation leaders Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare.
The fate of the talks now lies with the ministers and ultimately with the 110 leaders who arrive in the Danish capital by the end of the week, to overcome entrenched positions, particularly those held by the two superpowers, which are the world's two biggest greenhouse emitters.
According to Climate Change Minister Penny Wong, who will be joined in Copenhagen by the Prime Minister on Wednesday, it will involve China playing a new role on the global stage.
"The world is looking to China for leadership, just as the world looks to the US for leadership, and for China to play a constructive role," Senator Wong said.
China and other developing nations were yesterday maintaining the tough stance they had taken in these negotiations from the start. They argue that developed nations owe a "carbon debt" to the developing world for emissions already in the atmosphere and that the existing international negotiating mandate does not require developing countries - even China, the world's largest emitter - to make binding emission-reduction targets that can be internationally checked.
But the US, Australia, the European Union and other developed nations have said a draft agreement from the conference negotiations reflecting that stance is totally unacceptable and no basis for any Copenhagen deal.
US chief negotiator Todd Stern said: "The United States is not going to do a deal without major developing countries stepping up."
Senator Wong said such a result would not deliver the environmental outcome that was the whole point of the Copenhagen talks.
The developed countries point out that 97 per cent of the growth in greenhouse gases between now and 2030 will come from the developing world, with China contributing about half of that. Erwin Jackson of Australian think tank The Climate Institute said leaving one of the world's biggest emitters out of a new treaty would be fatal.
"Without a treaty that fairly covers all major emitters, global action will be undermined and political support would collapse into a meaningless pledge and review system," he said.
Environment ministers are now discussing a new agreement under the Kyoto Protocol for developed countries and an agreement to develop another treaty that would be signed by the US, which has said it will not join Kyoto, and developing nations including India and China. But the plan is far from agreed.
One issue at the heart of the standoff is China's refusal to allow its domestic emission-reduction efforts to be internationally monitored and verified - a stance the US has said is a deal-breaker and which is a primary focus of US-Chinese bilateral talks in Copenhagen.
China's chief climate-change negotiator, Su Wei, was yesterday adamant China would do its own checking. "We have robust monitoring and evaluation within our country and it can be fully trusted - and the actions and measures that we will take we will put in our national report (to the UN)," he said.
India's Environment Minister, Jairan Ramesh, backed China's stance that only emission cuts paid for by developed-country money should be internationally verified, saying India's voluntary domestic action was its own business.
Danish Environment Minister Connie Hedegaard said it was at least positive the US and China were still negotiating. "I can think of no time where the involvement and discussion between China and the United States and the way that they contribute have been more constructive, and that I take as a good sign, although there are differences of opinion definitely," Ms Hedegaard said.
Another standoff is over the developing world's demands that rich nations offer more money to help them reduce emissions and also offer much deeper emission-reduction targets.
UN convention on climate change executive secretary Yvo de Boer said deeper targets could also be in the self-interest of developed countries.