The UN Climate Change Conference in Durban, where representatives from over 190 countries will assemble between November 28 to December 9, marks an important moment in the global effort to combat climate change.

At stake is the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the only legally binding global agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The first phase of commitment from developed countries to cut their industrial CO2 emissions from their 1990 levels expires in 2012, and prospects for agreeing on a second phase look bleak.

The United States, which didn't ratify the first phase, has openly rejected a binding second phase, as have Canada, Japan and Russia.

Also uncertain are prospects for reaching a legally binding agreement that would include emerging economies, foremost among which is China – currently the world's biggest polluter.

“The EU is ready for a global treaty in Durban. But the reality is that other economies like the US and China are not. Let's be clear: The EU supports the Kyoto Protocol. But a second Kyoto period with only the EU, representing 11 percent of global emissions, is clearly not enough for the climate,” Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, said in a statement.

Decisions taken at the UN Climate change conference last year in Cancún, Mexico, will also be up for discussion in Durban. Among them, the pledge to set up a $100 billion annual fund to help emerging countries adapt to climate change seems to be in jeopardy, due to the economic crisis gripping the West.

Time running out?

The World Meteorological Organization recently revealed that CO2 emissions reached record levels in 2010 and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that climate change was responsible for an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as droughts, heavy precipitation and cyclones.

“Even if we managed to halt our greenhouse gas emissions today – and this is far from the case – they would continue to linger in the atmosphere for decades to come and so continue to affect the delicate balance of our living planet and our climate,” WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement.

As the country holding the rotating presidency of the EU Council, Poland will coordinate the EU's negotiating position. Polish Environment Minister Marcin Korolec has said that Durban is one of the major events of the Polish presidency.

“Global climate policy is one of the most challenging areas of global policy,” said the minister in a statement.

And if, as seems likely, negotiations end without concrete agreements, many are worried that the process of negotiating change will lose credibility.

“people outside will lose their faith in this negotiating process,” the EU’s chief climate negotiator, Artur Runge-Metzger, told EurActiv.

“It will probably have some very significant implications. The public and heads of state are watching very closely and this also puts the process very much under pressure.”