14 DAY TRIAL // Several countries, among which Poland, the organizer of the current UN Conference on Climate Change, are lobbying for reduced emission targets by the year 2020, despite the fact that they recognized global warming as being one of the most hard-pressing international issues at the moment. The financial crisis is the main reason, invoked by most nations that do not want to be bound by an agreement just yet.
On the other hand, the United Kingdom is the only country in the world to have established its own, legally-binding carbon emission limits, until 2022. This means that the nations forced itself to reduce pollution, although this may mean some economic drawbacks. All participants to the COP14 Conference should see Britain as an example of how to proceed on the matter, instead of trying to avoid a decision, just to satisfy some business interests.
However, most of the 187 nations that are attending the conference agree that a consensus on the matter of climate change must be reached as soon as possible, if the world is to have any chance of coming out of this global warming period intact. An "economic winter" should not keep governments from engaging in efforts to reduce their own greenhouse gas emission levels.
The US showed a "change of heart" in its relations with such issues, as the ignorance President Bush displayed on the matter is now gone, and replaced by President Obama's vows to curb a large portion of the country's emissions by 2020 and 2050, respectively. UN leaders say that, if the US takes leadership in this area, others may follow just by power of example alone.
Still, everyone knows that all solutions that could be found at the Poznan talks are useless if China and India are not included. As the two most rapidly-developing economies, the nations account for a large part of the amounts of gases released into the atmosphere yearly. Estimates say that China already moved ahead of the US, as the world's top polluter. If they are included in agreements, then one could say that the negotiations were at least a partial success, even though it’s very unlikely that the Pact, which is to replace the Kyoto Protocol, will be ready by next year.