In December this year, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will descend on Copenhagen to wrangle over the details of a new global climate deal — a potential successor to the Kyoto Protocol. See Nature’s Road to Copenhagen special for more coverage.

“One single country will not solve its environmental problems on its own, it will need partners and that’s why it’s very important that there’s that unified common position. The development of Africa should not go alongside the same mistakes that the developed world already made – to have these high emissions that are now affecting the whole world.”

Alice Kaudia, Kenya’s environment secretary, explains why ten African countries are meeting in Ethiopia to reach a common position before the Copenhagen meeting (BBC).

“We need to get an agreement that sets the world on a new path of sustainable consumption without getting obsessed with precise percentages.”

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says that the important thing is to reach a “realistic and practical” deal (Daily Telegraph).

“Being highly responsible for the survival and long-term development of mankind.”

Xie Zhenhua, China’s vice minister in charge of the National Development and Reform Commission, sets out his country’s negotiating attitude (Xinhua).

“China in the meantime firmly opposes any form of trade protectionism disguised as tackling climate change.”

Xie Zhenhua again.

“Rich nations cannot continue as before, emerging industrial countries must leave the old industrial-based path to prosperity, and the rest of the world may not even embark upon it. Yet the negotiations on emissions limits with each of the 192 signatory countries in the run-up to the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen in December 2009 have so far given no indication of so radical a change.”

Claus Leggewie, director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities in Essen, doesn’t think much of progress to date along the road (Guardian).