A two-day meeting of climate and environment ministers has just wrapped up in Copenhagen. They were making final preparations for the United Nations climate summit in three weeks.

About 40 environment ministers met in the Danish capital to find ways to rescue a deal to fight global warming at the summit. Up till now there has been a deadlock on issues such as cuts in greenhouse gases and funds for the poor.

[Connie Hedegaard, Danish Climate and Energy Minister]:
"Our plan is to deliver answers on all the major elements. It is also our very clear plan to try to get a mandate for a near term deadline to turn all of this a legal form.”

The United States is the second greenhouse gas emitter behind China but United States carbon-capping legislation is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

Ministers in Copenhagen welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama's statement after a summit in China. It said that Copenhagen should end with a deal that has "immediate operational effect" even if the goal of a legally binding pact is no longer achievable.
   
The Danish minister says she interpreted Obama's words as saying that the United States knows it has to deliver.

While the ministers were meeting, activists staged a "die-in" outside the meeting venue with a message to the ministers reading "Delay kills".