Different answers from Al and Arnie

I'll be back, promised Arnold Schwarzenegger as he left the podium.

And he was - five minutes after he delivered his speech to a clapping crowd, the Governator was downstairs answering questions from journalists.

With the blades of the Bella Centre's windmill turning slowly behind him, the California Governor said that even if governments did not agree on a climate pact, individuals could do plenty.

"Even if we don't come to an agreement ... this conference is automatically already a success," he said, before being driven away in a sleek black car.

"Perhaps the real success of Copenhagen is to give us an opportunity to think differently."

But two hours later, his countryman Al Gore presented a pointedly different view, telling a packed audience there was no way individuals could do enough without an urgent agreement by governments around the world.

Earlier in the day, New Zealand Environment Minister Nick Smith said the talks were in the balance, with about a 50/50 chance of success.

Were it not for the arrival of world leaders tonight, the chances would be even lower, he said.

There is a strong feeling in Copenhagen that 115 world leaders will not be coming to the city to fail.

Discussions over forestry and land-use rules important to New Zealand are believed to have reached the point where ministers should be able to table proposals on emissions cuts.

But progress on some of the main issues - including how to pay for and manage poor countries' adapting to climate change, whether to extend the Kyoto Protocol and how much access rich countries should have to international carbon markets - is delicate, to say the least, although a proposal on poor-country financing by Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, supported by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, has been hailed as a positive sign of common ground between Europe and Africa.

Ministers and leaders now have only two days to agree, or admit that the meeting has failed.

Outside the centre, Gemma Tillack was wearing a green tutu in honour of Prince Charles, who came to help open the ministers' part of the talks.

The Australian forests campaigner said she had emailed the Prince of Wales - a forests advocate who started the Prince's Rainforests project to reduce deforestation - to invite him to her protest. He couldn't make it but he emailed a message of support.

In return, she and a choir of other young Aussies decided to dress as green frogs - the symbol of the Prince's campaign - and sing Christmas-carol parodies to delegates urging stronger action on deforestation.