The United Nations conference on climate change, Dec. 1-12 in Poznan, Poland, faces the task of agreeing a plan of action for negotiations in 2009 for an obligatory pact for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The second phase of the Kyoto Protocol, which expires 2012, or a replacement treaty that includes the United States, should establish obligatory goals for curbing emissions of carbon gases that lead to global climate change. The negotiators are discussing — among other points — whether to include the growing giants China, India and Brazil in the requirements.

Another start of the debates is the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD), a scheme that has come under fire from some corners of the environmental activist world.

Deforestation is responsible for some 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions.

But the initiative could be “hostage to the whims of the market” and financial speculators, reduce the sovereignty of developing countries over their natural resources and allow the richest industrialized countries to continue polluting, states a document distributed by Friends of the Earth International.