US President Barack Obama has called on world leaders to come together at the UN climate summit in Copenhagen as time runs out to strike a deal. President Obama told delegates the international community's ability to take collective action was in doubt. Leaders have gathered for the final day of the summit amid uncertainty over the shape of any eventual deal.
A draft political agreement drawn up by a small group of countries was rejected during overnight discussions. Addressing the summit on Friday, President Obama said, while the science of climate change is not in doubt, I think our ability to take collective action is in doubt right now, and it hangs in the balance. He said he had come to Copenhagen "not to talk, but to act".
Unchecked, he said, climate change would pose unacceptable risks to international security, the world economy and the planet.
As President Dmitry Medvedev prepares to join talks to save the planet in Copenhagen, only a minority of Russians will be worrying much about the outcome. Climate change and the environment are not big issues for most Russians - and most of the time the government seems equally unconcerned.
"Global warming, the Kyoto Protocol, cutting emissions, nuclear waste, incinerators - it might be a topic of discussion among Moscow's business elite, but the masses are nowhere near these issues. No-one's talking about them," said former Russian deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, an outspoken critic of the current Russian government.
There is one popular opinion, though that Russia is a cold country and warming it up slightly wouldn't do any harm.
Russia has pledged to ensure that greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 are at least 25% below 1990 levels. But since they are currently 34% below 1990 levels - thanks to an economic slump that coincided with the collapse of the Soviet Union - the economy can continue to grow for some time before it becomes necessary to go green.
A poll conducted this summer suggests that Russia is far less concerned about climate change than other European countries. Only 46% of 1,008 respondents in Russia said it was a very serious problem, and only 54% favored government investment to address climate change if it might hurt the economy - figures closer to those for the US or India than for Western Europe.
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