Downing Street Says » Copenhagen

The Prime Minister’s Spokesman (PMS) told the assembled press that the Prime Minister had arrived last night and had met Prime Minister Rudd and Prime Minister Rasmussen. They discussed the progress that had been made and tactics in the coming days. The Prime Minister also met Prime Minister Hasina of Bangladesh.

This morning, the Prime Minister met with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. In that meeting they both agreed that everyone across the world needed to step up to the plate and there was clearly lots more to do. They agreed that there needed to be progress on short and long-term finance and the Prime Minister had agreed that he would take that forward and speak to other leaders during the course of the day.

They also discussed Iran. The two both agreed to make their strong concerns very clear; the Prime Minister’s view was that it was provocative and he had very serious concerns. They also discussed Afghanistan and looked forward to the conference in London on the 28th January.

The Prime Minister would continue to have bilaterals with various leaders later today, particularly African countries and the island countries.

Asked if there was any reaction to the resignation of the Danish Minister who had been president of the conference, the PMS said that she did not know the full details of this yet and would come back to people.

Asked what the Prime Minister’s general outlook was for the summit, as it appeared to be in trouble, the PMS replied that the Prime Minister thought that it would be an uphill struggle. There were some challenging issues that had to be met and sorted out over the next 48 hours. However, the Prime Minister thought that there was goodwill out there also and that a deal could be done.

The Prime Minister, President Obama, President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel all agreed that they needed to reach a deal and the Prime Minister had also set out that he was looking forward to a legally binding agreement within six months of Copenhagen. The Prime Minister had stressed this morning the impact not tackling climate change would have, not only on people in developing countries such as Bangladesh or countries in Africa affected by famine, but also on the British economy and what a deal would mean for the people of the UK.

Asked whether the Prime Minister regarded the summit as the last best chance to tackle global warming, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had expressed that this was an immensely important conference, but also that the challenges were great when 192 countries were trying to reach an agreement. Ed Miliband had also set out the challenges that he had been faced with in his discussions.

The Prime Minister would be taking part in a mass phone call with campaigners later on today, which gave people the opportunity to ask him questions.

Asked if the Prime Minister planned to meet the First Minister while he was in Copenhagen, the PMS said she did not know.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Copenhagen

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries