World leaders have been urged to make sure they hammer out a deal on reducing carbon emissions when they meet in Copenhagen.

Politicians are planning to convene in the Danish city to discuss tackling climate change in December, and many of us are hoping the talks yield positive results.

So I'm heartened to hear that Achim Steiner, head of UN's Environment Programme, is among us and is calling for decisive action to be taken.

However, he warned that with 160 days to go until the Copenhagen summit, attendees cannot waste them discussing minutiae instead of the major issues.

"I'm concerned that there are many at the moment who are not taking the point in time seriously enough," Mr Steiner told Sky News.

Indeed, he said if a deal is not arrived at during the meeting, then "we have lost the capacity to deal with climate change as a global community".

At least someone is calling for a sense of urgency here amid the predictable political wrangling.

Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi told Bloomberg yesterday that the Chinese are currently proving to be the main stumbling block to progress on reducing global emissions.