European Commission president "very worried" about climate talks

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said on Friday he was very worried about global climate talks with less than two months left until governments are due to meet in Denmark to try to seal a deal.

Barroso's remarks came on the last day of negotiations in Bangkok by officials from 180 nations trying to narrow differences over how to share the burden of the fight against climate change and draft a deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"Despite those efforts," Barroso said, referring to the Bangkok meetings and other recent talks, "I remain very worried by the progress at this stage of negotiations where we are dangerously close to deadlock if we do not put some more impetus into this process."

Fifty-eight days but one more week of negotiations remain — in Barcelona next month — before governments are due to convene the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen on December 7-18.

"We still have a long way to go to achieve success," Barroso told an international editors' meeting in the Danish capital.

Danish prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told the gathering it was no secret the U.N. talks were going slowly, and negotiators still had much work to do if an ambitious agreement was to be made in Copenhagen.

"I remain an optimist," Rasmussen said. "I believe we can actually reach an agreement. An ambitious agreement."

"My feeling is that common sense will prevail and we will find practical solutions to the outstanding obstacles."

He said his impression from recent talks with world leaders, including a brief meeting with US president Barack Obama in Copenhagen a week ago, was that "the political commitment is certainly present and the sense of urgency as well."

"The diplomacy is intense, and the will is certainly there," Rasmussen said.

He said there was "wide agreement" on the overall goal of global emissions reductions.

"After that, it becomes a little tricky," he said. "We are not yet there."

Rasmussen said that although progress had been made by countries adopting policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming, those national efforts were not enough, so a global agreement was needed.

"If we do the math — if we sum up all of the national emissions reductions under way — then the figures do not add up," he said. "We are still only half way at this point."

"National actions, although ambitious, are not enough," Rasmussen said. 

"This is exactly why we need a global agreement," he said.