Barack Obama and the best-known leaders in the world will gather in Copenhagen on Friday but it is a slight, gently-spoken Meles who has injected at least a faint ray of hope into the climate change summit by opening the way for a breakthrough on climate funding. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi surprised delegates from most countries in Copenhagen by offering a $300 billion-a-year compromise on the issue of climate finance.

Examiner - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced to day in Copenhagen the potential of a $100 billion in international climate financing by 2020. The funding is dependent on a international plan to curb green house gas emissions. The scale of this funding could be an important element in breaking up an impasse on the finance issue, as well as concluding a final political agreement here in Copenhagen. This funding will help the least developed and most vulnerable countries move toward a clean energy future and adapt to the effects of global warming that are already occurring. This money will help also protect tropical rain forests as well as deal with natural disasters produced by unstable climate.

French president Nicolas Sarcozy said his country will back Africa’s stand at Copenhagen climate deal.

Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Africa’s chief negotiator at the Copenhagen Climate Summit Meles Zenawi has said Africa needs a successful outcome in Copenhagen more than any other place and will not allow its basic interests be trampled upon.

A petition collected from two million Ethiopian’s urging America to take the lead on the coming climate negotiations has been sent to the US President Barack Obama.

An emergency summit of 10 members of the African Union has agreed on an amount of money to demand as compensation for the impact of climate change during next month's international talks in Copenhagen.

The World Bank Group (WBG) said it is preparing a new Environment Strategy aiming at achieving environmental sustainability at the group to ensure that its support to client countries leads to sustainable development outcomes.

Business Daily Africa - As the clock ticks towards the climate change talks in Copenhagen, Africa has now declared that it will not accept a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

African climate change negotiators gather on Monday in Addis Ababa to review the status of current climate change negotiations with particular attention to the Bali Action Plan and update on post-Kyoto activities.

Africa should not be seen as a charity case in global negotiations on climate change, the continent's newly chosen spokesman on climate change, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has said.