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Seal the deal now, leaders told
"Dear leaders of the world, I really hope you will take the best stand for us, just think about children, yours and ours, think about what you want for them
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"Dear leaders of the world, I really hope you will take the best stand for us, just think about children, yours and ours, think about what you want for them. Yours sincerely, Romain Laurent, Belgium."
Fritzgaheven Duco from Philippines also posted a message reading "The youth is ready to take action, but we need your direction. Seal this deal and we will take your hand. Together we will stand against climate change."
These are just two of the more than 11,000 comments on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) website.
Some 110 heads of state, including leaders of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases - US President Barack Obama, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudho-yono - are to attend the climate conference from Dec. 17 to Dec. 18.
The president of the conference, Denmark's Connie Hedegaard, has tabled an "alternative" draft text to help speed up discussions on emission cut targets.
Outside the conference, the same message of "Seal the Deal" was reflected in huge rallies of some 25,000 people amid tight security.
Mountaineers from the Himalayas, including Appa Sherpa who has ascended Mount Everest 19 times, marched in the streets of Copenhagen calling for world leaders to save the melting Himalayan glaciers, known as Asia's water towers, the source of water for millions of inhabitants.
"The changes in weather patterns are drastic. It did not snow at all *last* December, January and February, when it usually does, and it finally snowed heavily in May, when it is usually dry," Sherpa said in a statement.
The event was organized by the government of Nepal, which deployed the largest team of negotiators to the Copenhagen conference with a total of 600 delegates.
Activist Alison Gannett and her five friends from Colorado, USA, said they walked a total of 400 kilometers to London with slogans on their backs reading "Save our snow" before taking train journeys to Copenhagen.
Gannett said they came to Copenhagen to bring messages for the leaders to come up with a solution for climate change.
"Walking 400 kilometers is hard, *reaching a deal at* the Copenhagen meeting is also hard but if all leaders have the political will, the deal can be passed," Gannett told The Jakarta Post.
However the US government is not alone in its reluctance to commit to higher cuts in emissions, citing a negative impact on its economy.
On Saturday the Associated Press quoted a Republican politician as saying US participation in a new global climate deal would lead to soaring energy prices and damage America's economic competitiveness.
President Barack Obama has said the US will commit to greenhouse gas reductions by around 17 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
"If President Obama has his way, the Copenhagen conference will produce mandatory emissions limits that would destroy millions of American jobs and damage our economic competitiveness for decades to come," Marsha Blackburn said in a Republican weekly radio and Internet address.
Blackburn is among a group of Republican congressional critics of Democrat-led climate legislation who plan to travel to Copenhagen to voice opposition to the plan being offered by Obama, AP reported.
Blackburn said the Democrats' proposal to achieve such reductions would create "a bureaucratic nightmare that would make households, small businesses and family farms pay higher prices for electricity, gasoline, food and virtually every product made in America."
