U.N. Climate Talks Open As U.K. Committee Sets Emissions Goals

As a 12-day U.N. climate change conference opened in Poznan, Poland, top government officials warned that the global economic recession should not deter the world community from adopting a plan in 2009 to sharply cut greenhouse gas emissions. A host of officials, including the prime ministers of Poland and Denmark, urged 10,000 delegates from 186 nations to embrace emissions cuts and renewable energy development and to avoid what the top U.N. climate change official called the “cheap and dirty” fix of building more coal-fired power plants. Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, warned that if little is done to slow greenhouse gas emissions, the number of people facing water shortages from droughts and disappearing glaciers could increase from 1 billion today to 4.3 billion by 2050. Meanwhile, the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee issued a report outlining how the country should slash greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 by embarking on a program of renewable energy development, improvements in energy efficiency in buildings, and the adoption of hybrid and electric vehicles.