Gridlocked UN talks on climate change have restarted in China with a warning that feuding countries must immediately end their fighting and broker a deal.
The six days of talks in the northern port city of Tianjin are part of long-running but acrimonious efforts through the United Nations to secure a post-2012 treaty on tackling global warming.
The event is the first time that China, the world's biggest source of greenhouse gases that scientists say cause global warming, has hosted a UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Little progress has been made since world leaders failed to broker a deal in Copenhagen last year and the delegates were told they had to break the stalemate ahead of another UN climate summit in Mexico starting next month. Hopes are not high in many quarters that breakthroughs sought by environmentalists will be brokered amongst the approximately 3000 candidates.
"Now is the time to rise to your challenge," UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres said in an address at the start of the conference.
"Now is the time to accelerate the search for common ground."
Greenhouse gases the focus after Copenhagen failure
The final goal of the process is a treaty aimed at curbing greenhouse gases, which could potentially be clinched late next year at a UN summit in South Africa, in time to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires at the end of 2012.
However, after the Copenhagen failure and the continuing battles between developed and developing countries over who should shoulder responsibilities for curbing greenhouse gases, expectations have
been lowered.
The focus is now on trying to broker small deals on specific issues, such as cooperation on clean energy technologies and rewarding developing countries for not cutting down their rainforests.
But scientists say that devastating floods in Pakistan and China this year, as well as fires in Russia, are a taste of the extreme weather that humans will endure if world leaders do not curb greenhouse gas emissions soon.
"The bottom line is that it is in no-one's interest to delay action. Quite the contrary, it is in everyone's interest to accelerate action in order to minimise negative impacts on all," Figueres said.
The phenomenal economic growth of China has seen it overtake the United States as the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in recent years, and its efforts to limit emissions will be under the spotlight this week.
After being blamed by many in the developed world for derailing the Copenhagen talks, China decided to host the event partly to demonstrate its commitment to the UN process and clean energy, analysts say.
China said it wanted to foster a spirit of cooperation at this week's conference.
"All countries need to renew their efforts to consolidate and expand consensus and hammer out a binding agreement at an early date," Dai Bingguo, China's top foreign policy official, said in a speech to the delegates.
