EU threatened global biodiversity deal, critics say

Europe's tough stance on sharing genetic information threatened to wreck last week's historic deal on biodiversity, NGOs present at the talks in Japan have said.

The reports suggest negotiators were staring down the barrel on another Copenhagen-style failure until concessions in the final hours of the fortnight-long meeting allowed an agreement to be struck.

"Without a deal on access and benefit sharing (ABS) of genetic material there wouldn't have been an agreement on anything ...