CANCUN: World climate talks in Cancun are entering their final stretch beset by fears of a repeat of the failures that nearly wrecked the December 2009 Copenhagen summit.

Environment ministers began arriving in the Mexican resort city at the weekend to find themselves plunged into a mood soured by a row over the Kyoto Protocol and a logjam of inter-connected, unresolved issues.

After more talks among senior officials, the ministers will get down to a four-day haggle tomorrow. The outcome of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change gathering is unclear, despite 12 days of meetings and a low-ambition goal, say delegates.

''We're starting to have positions that are a bit stronger and a bit more radical,'' said France's negotiator, Brice Lalonde, calling for a ''spirit of compromise''.

Wendel Trio, the international climate policy director for the environmental group Greenpeace, said that so far countries had only spelt out their ''most extreme positions''.