At a press conference in Beijing on October 24 Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the financial crisis must not be used as an excuse to postpone action on climate change, but added that the world needs to work out a formula that avoids threats to the economies of developing countries and countries dependent on coal.

The Prime Minister, who is in Beijing to attend the 7th ASEM summit, said he had met earlier in the day with the UN secretary general, the President of Indonesia, and the Prime Minister Denmark. Poland, Indonesia and Denmark are hosts of three major UN climate conferences that began in Bali in 2007, will continue in Poznan in December this year, and are planned to conclude in 2009 with the signing of a new climate treaty in Copenhagen.

"We must not yield to the temptation of using the financial crisis as an excuse for delaying the process of climate protection," Tusk said, but added "We need to work out a formula in Poznan that will allow developing countries, and countries that are based on coal such as China and Poland, to find financial and economic benefits in the project and not just financial and economic threats."

Prime Minister Tusk said Poland has also proposed a meeting of finance ministers before the Poznan conference to consider how to finance the climate protection process.

At a summit of the European Union on October 15-16, Prime Minister Tusk was widely seen as a driving force behind a group of eastern European leaders aiming to modify EU plans for a 20 percent reduction in emissions by 2020. Nearly all Poland’s electricity is generated by burning coal and the country’s leadership fears the plans as currently formulated would double domestic electricity prices.

Tusk said "Our civilization depends on taking action on climate change. It is the quintessence of responsibility and solidarity." But he added that "if we are too stringent and too orthodox, the poor will not participate". On December’s climate change conference he said, "In Poznan we will be looking to make one more step forward and it is alright if the steps are quite cautious. If they are too fast and too rapid we will never get countries such as China to participate."

Prime Minister Tusk added it would be much easier to talk to major developing countries such as China and India about climate protection if the USA was persuaded to seriously participate in the project. He added that he attached great importance to the upcoming US presidential election as both presidential candidates had shown greater sensitivity on the question of the environment than the current administration.

(China.org.cn by John Sexton October 24, 2008)