Durban - As Heads of State and ministers start arriving in Durban today for the UN climate talks, negotiators are hoping that come end of the week, some kind of political compromise will be reached to break the stalemate on a whole range of issues.
While UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres insisted at the weekend that progress had been made on many issues including adaptation, mitigation and finance, observers say serious political will is going to be needed to convince all developed countries to a second commitment of the contentious Kyoto Protocol.
The high-level segment of the conference, which starts on Tuesday, will also have to thrash out details of the Green Climate Fund, and the fast start climate financing for poorer countries of $30 billion for the period of 2010 to 2012 must also be finalized.
About 12 Heads of State, including President Jacob Zuma, and more than 190 ministers are expected to join the session, which is expected to last until the late hours of Tuesday night.
South Africa will be using its allocated slot to call on the developed world to help the continent scale up its renewable energy option in its energy mix.
Meanwhile, China, the world's biggest carbon emitter has joined some European countries in saying it would accept a legally-binding climate deal in Durban that would go into force after 2020, but has placed conditions on this.
These included a renewal of carbon-cutting pledges by rich nations under the Kyoto Protocol, along with finance guarantees for poorer countries.
The EU supports a road map linked to the Kyoto Protocol, while Russia has proposed amendments to the convention to allow for a periodic revision of countries that are under certain obligations to cut emissions. Currently, developing nations have fewer obligations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions compared with major economies.
