Core nations struggle towards basis of deal

A DOZEN core countries met into the early hours of the morning in Copenhagen in a desperate effort to put together the basis of a global deal on climate change in the final hours.

All hopes will be on the US president, Barack Obama, who arrives at the conference this morning when he is expected to put more money on the table for developing countries, and perhaps to offer a bigger cut in US emissions.

After days of deadlock over process and with less than 24 hours left to find agreement, the Danes finally cleared the way for serious negotiations to begin yesterday on the central issues.