China, India give nod to Copenhagen climate change accord

AMSTERDAM -- China joined India on Tuesday in giving qualified approval to the Copenhagen climate accord calling for voluntary limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The official messages to the U.N. climate change secretariat did little to ease the pessimism that a legal international agreement on global warming can be concluded this year.

A one-sentence note from China's top climate change negotiator, Su Wei, authorized the addition of China to the list attached to the nonbinding accord brokered by President Obama in the final hours of the December climate change summit in the Danish capital.

India sent a note on Monday that it "stands by the contents of the accord." More than 100 countries had replied to a query by Denmark stating if they wanted to be "associated" with the accord.

The delayed response by the world's two fastest growing polluters had raised concerns that without their concurrence the accord could fall apart.

Now, their avoidance of the word "associated" is being seen as deliberate and possibly a step to distance themselves from full endorsement.

The responses to the Danish question highlight the gulf that remains after the disappointing conference in Copenhagen. The summit fell well short of its original ambition of a legally binding treaty controlling the world's emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming.

The accord, concluded in a flurry of last-minute diplomacy, set a goal of limiting the increase in the Earth's average temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 Fahrenheit) from preindustrial levels. But it did not say how that can be achieved or how countries should share the burden of cutting carbon emissions.