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.

The head of the UN’s climate change body has attempted to light a fire under international negotiators ahead of the Copenhagen summit.

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told those at a meeting in Bangkok, Thailand they would have to speed up the current “painfully slow” negotiations.

“Time is not just pressing. It has almost run out,” he said (Reuters, AP).

The meeting is one of a number scheduled to attempt to thrash out a new international deal to replay the Kyoto treaty, in advance of Copenhagen. Tove Ryding of Greenpeace has a solution to slow progress, as told to Reuters: “What we need to see is late nights and fights. We need to see them sit there, that’s what these people do for a living, they need to smell like sweat and coffee. If they don’t do that, they’re not actually at work.”

Meanwhile, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said world leaders had made progress on climate change at a recent meeting in New York. “All leaders said they wanted a deal and are prepared to work for it. This gives the negotiations vital political impetus,” he said (press release).