US President Barack Obama said an "unprecedented breakthrough" had been reached among day-long meetings involving about two dozen presidents and prime ministers gathered in Copenhagen.

Obama admitted the so-called Copenhagen Accord did not go far enough, but characterised its provisions as "meaningful," arguing they provided a tool for ratcheting up action on greenhouse gases.

Copenhagen's Bella Center crackled with nervous tension, exhaustion and confusion as leaders raced from one closed-doors huddle to another, arguing over legalistic chunks of text in an extraordinary game of climate poker.

Negotiators were grey-faced after more than 12 days of battling over text, and over-stressed journalists became feral in their quest for information.

Yet as the conference lurched into its 13th day, it was still unclear whether the much-trumpeted deal had a future.

It still had to gain approval from a plenary session here of the 194 members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

They include African countries and small island nations most at risk from the warmer Earth's temperatures that bring rising sea levels and the risk of more droughts, storms and floods.

"Today's events really represent the worst developments in climate change negotiations in history," said Lumumba Stanislas Dia-ping of Sudan, chairing the Group of 77 and China bloc of 130 poor nations.

The agreement set a commitment to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), but did not spell out the important stepping stones -- global emissions targets for 2020 or 2050 -- for getting there.

Nor did it spell out a year by which emissions should peak, a demand made by rich countries that was fiercely opposed by China, or insist on tough compliance mechanisms to ensure nations honoured their promises.

Somewhat more successfully, it spelt out some details for how poor countries should be financially aided to shore up their defences against rising seas, water stress, floods and storms.

Rich countries pledged to commit 30 billion dollars in "short-track" finance for the 2010-2012 period, including 11 billion from Japan, 10.6 billion from the European Union and 3.6 billion dollars from the United States.

They also set a goal of "jointly mobilising" 100 billion dollars by 2020, although details were sketchy.

The US president said before leaving Copenhagen that what had been billed as one the most important summits since World War II would be the starting gun for a much stronger effort to combat global warming.

"Today we have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough here in Copenhagen," Obama told reporters.

"For the first time in history, all major economies have come together to accept their responsibility to take action to confront the threat of climate change."

He added: "Going forward, we are going to have to build on the momentum we have achieved here in Copenhagen. We have come a long way but we have much further to go."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the deal was the only one that could be reached after the summit had revealed deep rifts between rich and poor countries, and within those two blocs themselves.

"The agreement is not perfect but it's the best one possible," Sarkozy told reporters, adding that another global warming summit would be hosted by Germany in mid-2010.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel admitted she viewed the result "with mixed emotions.

"There is light and there is shadow... The only alternative to the agreement would have been a failure."

The deal was hammered out in talks between Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa as well as key European countries, diplomats said.

There was no immediate word on Russia's stance. President Dmitry Medvedev was one of the first to leave Copenhagen, having voiced frustration at the negotiation process overseen by the Danish government.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said that talks had been close to collapse on seven occasions, but were ultimately saved by sharp deal-making in which Obama played a lead role.

China had bristled at anything called "verification" of its plan to cut the intensity of its carbon emissions, seeing it as an infringement of sovereignty and saying that rich nations bore primary responsibility for global warming.

Disagreements between the China and United States -- the world's No. 1 and 2 carbon polluters -- had been at the core of the divisions holding up a deal.

The emergence of a deal came at the end of a day in which several draft agreements were knocked back, with leaders themselves taking over the task of redrafting the exact wording of three pages of text.

Different versions of the document showed the leaders particularly split over whether to fix a firm date for finalising a legally binding treaty in 2010, and a commitment to slashing global carbon emissions in half by 2050.

The agreement was met with dismay by campaigners, who said it was weak, non-binding and sold out the poor.

"By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world's poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates," said Nnimmo Bassey, chair of Friends of the Earth International, calling the outcome "an abject failure".

"The blame for this disastrous outcome is squarely on the developed nations."

Antonio Hill of Oxfam charged: "It can't even be called a deal. It has no deadline for an agreement in 2010 and there is no certainty that it will be a legally binding agreement."

"The so-called Copenhagen accord is an historic failure, representing the collapse of international efforts to sign a binding global treaty that can stop catastrophic climate change," said the US group Avaaz.org.

"The accord is far from fair, barely binding, and absolutely unambitious."

Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo said: "The city of Copenhagen is a climate crime scene tonight, with the guilty men and women fleeing to the airport in shame.

Main points in draft deal on table at Copenhagen Copenhagen (AFP) Dec 19, 2009 - Following are the main points in the draft deal agreed among leaders of more than two dozen countries at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen. The text, called the Copenhagen Accord, is aimed at being a springboard to a worldwide pact on tackling climate change. The draft -- which delegates said would be put to a plenary session, presaging a rocky ride from nations deemed to have been excluded from the process -- spelt out these provisions: GLOBAL WARMING "should be (kept) below two degrees Celsius" (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), says the draft. But it does not identify a year by which carbon emissions should peak, a position resisted by emerging giants. Countries are asked to spell out by February 1 next year their pledges for curbing carbon emissions by 2020. The deal does not spell out penalties for any country that fails to meet its promise. FUNDS: Rich countries are pledging 10 billion dollars in the three years from 2010-2012 to help poor countries tackle climate change. They also set the goal of "mobilising jointly" 100 billion dollars a year by 2020, drawn from "a wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance." VERIFICATION: The pledges of rich countries will come "under rigorous, robust and transparent" scrutiny under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Developing countries will submit national reports on their emissions pledges under a method "that will ensure that national sovereignty is respected." Pledges on mitigations measures that require international support will be recorded in a registry. MID-CENTURY TARGETS: The text does not endorse the goal of halving the global output of carbon pollution by mid-century, an objective many rich countries endorse. Emerging giants -- especially China and India -- have said they are unwilling to back such a target. LEGALLY-BINDING TREATY: There is no deadline for transforming the objectives outlined in the accord into a legally-binding treaty. It had been widely expected that the text would call for a treaty to be finalised before the end of 2010.

"World leaders had a once in a generation chance to change the world for good, to avert catastrophic climate change. In the end they produced a poor deal full of loopholes big enough to fly Air Force One through."

earlier related report
Deadlock forces climate talks into overtime
Copenhagen (AFP) Dec 18, 2009 - Marathon UN climate talks lurched into overtime Friday with world leaders deadlocked on a deal to tame global warming, despite pleas for an agreement from US President Barack Obama.

At the scheduled 6:00pm (1700 GMT) close of a summit, the climax of 12 days of negotiations in Copenhagen, leaders were still thrashing through the text of a draft accord -- deeply split over how to curb carbon emissions and muster the funds to combat climate change.

The blame game was already underway, with some of the leaders venting their frustration at the summit's chairman Denmark, while leaders of small island states most at risk from rising sea levels expressed despair at events.

The haggling capped two years of deadlock over crafting a new UN treaty from 2013 that would reduce global warming from mortal threat to manageable peril.

After teams of negotiators and then ministers failed to end the impasse, it was left to the leaders themselves to work out the exact wording of a three-page draft accord.

Different versions of the document showed the leaders particularly split over whether to fix a firm date for finalising a legally binding treaty in 2010, and a commitment to slashing global carbon emissions in half by 2050.

Scientists say failure to curb the rise in Earth's temperature will inevitably lead to worsening drought, floods, storms and rising sea levels.

Obama, whose presence here was intended to provide the momentum to propel the deal over the finishing line, had pleaded for unity while acknowledging any agreement would be less than perfect.

"No country would get everything that it wants," he told the summit.

"The question is whether we will move forward together, or split apart."

Posters here have championed the summit venue as 'Hopenhagen'. But reflecting the prevailing deep sense of doom, the front page of the evening Ekstra Bladet paper called the city 'Brokenhagen'.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon said leaders faced a defining moment in history -- and urged them not to blow it.

"The world is watching ... It will be your legacy for all time," said Ban.

Obama held nearly an hour of talks with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and lined up a second session for the evening in a bid to narrow the divide between the world's two biggest emitters of Earth-warming greenhouse gasses.

China, having said it will implement voluntary emission cuts, is resisting calls for international scrutiny for fear it would infringe on its sovereignty.

Obama's plans to cut emissions stop well short of pledges from the EU and Japan but the president -- already facing huge opposition to his proposals in Congress -- is in a difficult position to go further.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said the world community had "clearly underestimated" the task of reaching even a general declaration.

Medvedev did not hang around for any agreement to emerge, flying to a pre-arranged meeting in Kazakhastan.

One of his advisors said frustration boiled over in a meeting of around two dozen heads of state, many exhausted after working through the night.

"Lots of countries made strong statements about their unhappiness over the organisation of the summit and the president (Medvedev) noted the poor level of preparation of these documents," Arkady Dvorkovich told reporters.

Barely an hour before the scheduled close, the 27 EU nations held their own meeting on the sidelines to discuss the state of play.

"Things are tough but we don't want a mediocre agreement," French President Nicolas Sarkozy told reporters.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, who has offered nearly 20 billion dollars towards a global climate fund, said failure to reach agreement would be a "disgrace".

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was equally blunt in remarks, saying: "The meeting has not been a success -- it has failed."

Each draft did contain a call to prevent a rise in global temperatures of more than 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with pre-industrial times.

But that figure falls way short of the demands of threatened island nations who, with their very existence threatened by rising seas, have called for a cap of 1.5 C (2.7 Fahrenheit).

"Whatever the outcome, it looks bad for us," said a member of the Maldives delegation, an archipelago which fears being swallowed up by the Indian Ocean in a matter of decades.

The draft also outlines a package for poor countries most vulnerable to the ravages of an overheating world, kicking off with 10 billion dollars (seven billion euros) a year from 2010 to 2012, and climbing to 100 billion by 2020.

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