Barack Obama was sent rushing across Copenhagen by Gordon Brown, Germany's Angela Merkel, France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Australian premier Kevin Rudd on Friday evening in a dramatic last-minute bid to persuade Third World leaders to help save the climate summit from complete collapse.
It was the climax of an extraordinary 72 hours, a diplomatic Perils of Pauline in which the talks were repeatedly saved from breakdown, after the Chinese leadership unexpectedly picked up the mantle of the departed George W Bush in setting out to scupper any prospect of a new international treaty to bring global warming under control.
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