Negotiators at U.N. climate talks to meet Sunday, a day early

Reuters
An employee installs a sticker with the logo of the upcoming COP21 Climate Change Conference on a Nissan LEAF electric car in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris, France, November 16, 2015. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

OSLO (Reuters) - Government negotiators at a U.N. climate conference in Paris will meet on Sunday, a day earlier than planned, to let them get down to work before world leaders arrive for a summit on Monday. The U.N. Climate Secretariat said on Wednesday that senior officials from almost 200 nations would meet in the conference hall on the outskirts of Paris on Nov. 29 at 1600 GMT. Until now, they had been due to meet for the first time only after about 140 world leaders including U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping attended on Monday to give speeches of encouragement. Officials who oversee the talks "considered that an early opening of the session will offer an opportunity to make the best possible use of the very limited time available to finalize negotiations", the Secretariat said in a statement. The conference, lasting until Dec. 11, is seeking to agree a deal that signals a break with a rising reliance on fossil fuels, blamed by a U.N. panel of scientists for causing more floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. (Reporting By Alister Doyle; Editing by Kevin Liffey)