The UN climate change summit was still deadlocked last night with no indication that agreement would be reached on all of the outstanding issues by this evening, when it is due to conclude.
As the summit neared its make-or-break point, the US was pressing the EU and others to take a more realistic view of what could be accomplished and what would constitute "success" for this, the sixth conference of the parties.
Ms Eileen Claussen, a US delegate, said there was a perception among many observers that the conference was supposed to resolve all of the outstanding political and technical issues stemming from the Kyoto Protocol and pave the way for its ratification.
But the one-time adviser to President Clinton, who now runs the Pew Centre on Global Climate Change, insisted that this had never been a realistic expectation, particularly in the case of the US, where the Clean Air Act had taken 10 years to negotiate.
Negotiations had continued until 4 a.m. yesterday in an effort to dispose of as many of the less contentious issues as possible - including aid to developing countries to enable them to adapt to climate change.
At a press conference last night, Mr Frank Loy, head of the US delegation, revealed that a $1 billion fund would be set up, with contributions coming from the industrialised countries in proportion to their emissions; thus, the US would pay the most.
But he made it clear that the Americans were still opposed to the imposition of financial penalties on countries which failed to achieve their emission reduction targets under the Kyoto Protocol and said no agreement had yet been reached on "carbon sinks".
There was speculation last night that the "sinks" issue, which involves claiming credits against emissions for forestry and farmland, might even be adjourned to the next climate summit in the Moroccan city of Marrakech in November 2001.
Negotiations continued into the night, but the issues still remaining to be resolved are extremely complex, making it unlikely that full agreement will be reached even if the Dutch environment minister, Mr Jan Pronk, agrees to extend the summit for a day.
Mr Pronk, who is known to be an experienced negotiator, is expected to start "knocking heads together" today in an effort to cobble together a deal which the EU could sell as sufficient to retain the "environmental integrity" of Kyoto.
In Ms Claussen's view, the best outcome would be a partial agreement in The Hague which would be enough to ensure that the EU countries and Japan could ratify Kyoto by 2002 - but not so intimidating that the US would postpone ratification for years.
As bleary-eyed delegates arrived yesterday morning for the latest round of talks, they had to plug their ears against a deafening air raid siren right outside the Netherlands Congress Centre. It had been set up by Greenpeace as to sound an "alarm" on "dirty deals".
Though the truck carrying the still-blaring siren was removed later by Dutch police, four Greenpeace activists managed to get onto the roof of a temporary police headquarters opposite the conference centre where they unfurled a banner reading "Don't let us drown".
