Key points unresolved at climate summit

COPENHAGEN, Denmark – As world leaders begin gathering here to hammer out a climate deal in two days, some key decisions still haven’t been made.

It’s unclear how to fund a deal that could involve the transfer of billions of dollars from industrialized countries to the developing world; delegates remain at loggerheads over which mechanisms should be employed to reduce emissions; and there is continuing debate about how to monitor compliance with a treaty.

The uncertainty over the talks’ direction raises questions about the next step: what sort of binding treaty policymakers will be able to produce next year, the new deadline they have set.

A new version of the overall negotiating text came out early today with little changed from last week’s draft.

The lack of visible progress has frustrated activists, who have staged attention-grabbing stunts to convey their dissatisfaction.

Former vice president Al Gore urged a crowd of hundreds inside the Bella Center on Tuesday to continue pressing for a meaningful agreement. “My plea to you is: Realize what is at stake and reach a result that gives momentum to the process,” Gore said in a nearly hour-long speech.

The question of funding – which stalled the talks earlier this week when a group of poor nations protested that they stood to lose even the protections they had won with the Kyoto Protocol 12 years ago – remains intractable.

Delegates from poorer countries and from major emerging economies such as China have charged that wealthy nations have not put enough money on the table to convince developing nations to sign on to any deal that would force them to curb their greenhouse gas emissions; industrialized nations counter that they cannot embrace any agreement that does not bind major emerging economies to emissions-monitoring procedures that can be verified from outside the country.