Delegates and ministers from up to 190 countries are in Warsaw for the three-day ‘Pre-COP’ meeting, which began Wednesday, to discuss how business can effectively engage in efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve cooperation between industry and negotiators.
“We are facing three days of intensive talks,” says Marcin Korolec, Poland’s Minister of the Environment, as the country prepares to host the UN Conference on Climate Change, which begins in the Polish capital on 11 November.
“We will be collecting opinions and ideas from individual delegations on their expectations on a future climate agreement. We need to consider, among other matters, the expected duration of a new agreement [on cutting carbon emissions] and how to ensure that the agreement can be ratified by all 194 national members of the Climate Convention,” the minister added.
Reuters is reporting, however, that the EU is split on future commitments to cutting emissions, with Poland leading the argument against too deep a cut, which would harm its economy, which is heavily reliant on coal as an energy source.
Environment ministers will meet in Luxembourg on October 14 to try and agree a joint EU stance ahead of the UN climate talks in Warsaw in November.
The prospects of coming to a united stance on the issue are slim, however, with Denmark calling for the most ambitious targets.
Reuters reports it has seen a draft EU document, which states the main outstanding issues for the European Union related to "mitigation commitments", or efforts to make fresh promises before 2020 within the UN context.
"Enhancing pre-2020 mitigation ambition will pave the way for an ambitious 2015 international agreement," the draft says, adding that the issue is especially a problem for one delegation, “which EU sources said is Poland,” the news agency reports.
The Pre-Cop conference in Warsaw this week follows the publication last Friday of the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which declared that it was “95 percent” certain that recent global warming is man-made.
This will add pressure on Poland and other countries to fall into line with ambitious EU targets for cutting gas emissions.
Environment minister Marcin Korolec has said the Polish government would not comment on emission targets ahead of the UN climate conference in November. (pg)