COPENHAGEN (AFP) - Environment ministers haggled behind closed doors in their first major get-together of the UN climate summit, as they were warned Sunday of the catastrophic consequences of failure to reach a deal. Danish police detained around 200 protesters at another demonstration on the sidelines of the talks, a day after the first mass protest of the gathering. Sundays informal meeting gathered four dozen environment ministers representing countries with varied economies and interests in the 194-member UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Meeting under the chairmanship of former Danish minister Connie Hedegaard, they are tasked with turning a problem-plagued blueprint into a landmark deal on climate change that can be endorsed on Friday by about 120 world leaders. But in its first six days, negotiators made negligible progress on any of the major issues, stoking fears that the outcome would be a poor fudge. Penny Wong, Australias climate change minister, said Sundays talks had been frank and robust. Clearly we have a lot of work ahead... There is need for political leadership in these days to come. We made progress, but as in all of these negotiations, never as much progress as you would like, she told reporters. Hedegaard insisted that, compared with a couple of months ago, procedural advances in the first six days had been fantastic. She added, though: We still have a daunting task in front of us over the next few days. Scientists say that without dramatic action within the next decade, Earth will be on course for warming that will inflict drought, flood, storms and rising sea levels, translating into hunger, homelessness and misery for many millions. But scaling back carbon emissions has become a fierce political issue, pitching rich countries against poor, and opening up divisions within each of those blocs. In a fresh protest Sunday, police detained around 200 anti-capitalist demonstrators as they tried to block a section of Copenhagens busy port. Many of those held at the protest, called by Climate Action Justice, had already been detained at Saturdays rally and then released. De Boer warned in comments to AFP: There will be huge political fallout if we fail to reach an agreement this week. The draft blueprint under scrutiny has seen the conference split into roughly four groups, each staking out their own interests. They are: The developing countries, which are demanding stiff, binding curbs in emissions by rich nations, an extension of the UNFCCCs Kyoto Protocol, and hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to tackle climate change; emerging giant economies, which are being pressed to make ambitious (but voluntary) emissions commitments of their own; the US, now rolling back the climate policies of the Bush era, which rejects the Kyoto Protocol and is leading the pressure on the developing giants; the EU, which says it has done the most on emissions pledges and short-term climate finance promises. It baulks at signing up to a new Kyoto round until the US and the developing giants pitch in more.