Copenhagen climate change summit in deadlock over rival texts

[denem]

Source: The Times

The Copenhagen climate change summit is likely to end with two rival texts because the main countries cannot agree on the key question of how to share the burden of cutting emissions to a safe level.

The extent of the disagreement was exposed by the publication yesterday of two draft agreements, neither of which contained clear numbers or language on any of the most contentious issues, despite two years of negotiations before the summit.

The US refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol has forced negotiators to work on two separate texts and there is now little chance of the twin-track process producing a single document. The negotiators from 193 countries are hoping that the early arrival at the summit of several leaders next Wednesday, including Gordon Brown, will help to break the deadlock.

The only issues on which agreement is close are a commitment to a three-year climate fund to help poor countries to adapt to global warming and a pledge to limit the global temperature increase to 2C, although without a clear plan for delivering it.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/copenhagen/article6954067.ece

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Question: In the last two years of (behind the scenes) negotiations, was the US ever open to signing Kyoto?