Prescott's race to save deal on climate change
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor

BRITAIN will make a desperate final attempt to salvage an international deal on climate change before President Clinton leaves office at the end of January.

 Amid recriminations yesterday about responsibility for the collapse of the talks in The Hague and the failure of a compromise brokered by John Prescott, there was speculation that the Deputy Prime Minister's position in Cabinet had been undermined. But Downing Street defended Mr Prescott. Michael Meacher, the environment minister, said that the talks ran out of time when ministers had been "inches away from a deal. It's all a muddle and a tragedy, but we will recover. The world's got to have a deal, the storms and floods are going to go on happening."

 Mr Meacher said the compromise would be discussed by EU ministers at the next environment council meeting on December 17. If EU ministers agree, the Government hopes that an emergency meeting of parties to the UN convention on climate change can be arranged. Mr Meacher said: "I'd like to see something in the next couple of months." A senior official said: "If it is not done soon, it will take years. It won't be the climate which has changed by the end of January, it will be the whole political situation."

 Meanwhile, Mr Prescott singled out Dominique Voynet, the French environment minister, for causing the breakdown of the talks. He said: "She got cold feet, said she was exhausted and tired, and could not understand the detail, and then refused to accept it. Britain had conceded too much to America. It was not acceptable."

 The proposed deal would allow America to count 50 million tons of carbon a year from its forests and 25 million tons from new agricultural measures against its target for cutting greenhouse gases by seven per cent by 2010. America dropped its demand to count forests planted overseas. Sources close to Mr Prescott said he was worried that a new American administration - whether led by George W Bush or Al Gore - would need time to understand the issues, making it difficult to finalise the treaty during the next year.