Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/no-plan-b-for-copenhagen-climate-summit-u-n-negotiator-says Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Ahead of a U.N. conference on global warming this December in Copenhagen, the organization's top climate negotiator speaks with Margaret Warner about the outlook for a global pact to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. MARGARET WARNER: When world leaders meet at the U.N. next week, they'll devote a full day to climate change. Tuesday's climate change summit is seen as crucial to efforts to forge a new global emissions pact at a U.N.-sponsored conference in Copenhagen in December.The last treaty, adopted in Kyoto more than a decade ago, bound countries to reduce their emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by the time the agreement expires in 2012. But major polluting nations like China and India weren't given any targets. And in the U.S., Congress never ratified Kyoto.President Obama came to office vowing to reduce U.S. emissions. And earlier this summer, the House narrowly passed a bill to cut them 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. But a climate change bill in the Senate is stalled, possibly until next year.Yvo de Boer is the U.N. negotiator who's trying to put together a deal. He's in Washington for meetings in advance of the New York summit, and he joins us now.And, Mr. de Boer, welcome. Thanks for being here.YVO DE BOER, executive secretary, U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change: Thank you. MARGARET WARNER: So what do you hope to achieve in New York next week that will improve at least the prospects for getting a deal at Copenhagen? YVO DE BOER: Well, this is the only meeting that is going to bring together all heads of state and government from countries around the world, major industrialized countries, island nations that may disappear because of climate change, and I hope that they will collectively send a signal that they want Copenhagen to succeed. MARGARET WARNER: Now, they sent a similar signal around the G-8 meeting in Italy in July, yet the U.S. negotiator and others involved in these talks that you've been so involved in say they really aren't going well, they're not on pace to get a deal by December. Do you share that view? YVO DE BOER: Well, I would agree that the negotiations are moving slowly. But part of the reason why no big advances were made in the G-8 is because countries feel more comfortable negotiating climate change in the broader setting of the U.N. with everybody at the table rather than a small group, so that was part of the reason.