The resignation of Poland's Environment Minister, Dr. Maciej Nowicki, highlights the growing difficulties governments face between meeting increased global environmental standards and ensuring long-term sustainable growth. Ultimately, this challenge presents governments, businesses and citizens with a complex set of choices.

For instance, should Poland (and other Central European economies) prioritize an aggressive green agenda over job creation and much-needed infrastructure development? Is one impossible without the other? Should growth rate limits be placed on Central Europe, which comprises the EU’s most rapidly developing economies but some of its biggest polluters?

As the global economy readjusts an unprecedented opportunity exists to develop a greener business environment. This will require considerable capital investments, structural changes, and public support for social trade-offs.

The front line of this debate resides in Europe’s eastern member states, particularly Poland, an economy that is heavily dependent on coal. The UN Climate Change conference currently taking place in Copenhagen aims to provide both the political capital and technical mechanisms best suited for the transformation into to a low-carbon world.

The move from economic crisis to green recovery will ultimately create winners and losers. What Central Europe’s governments need to assess is how best to incentivize the adoption of new technologies while acknowledging and gauging its affect on high-carbon industries.

Equally, they must identify the most effective metrics for success, be it funds invested, amount of CO2 reduced, or jobs created. Central Europe’s climate strategy also has bold implications for a variety of broader EU initiatives, including energy security, economic integration and future transatlantic relations. Without a clear directive from Copenhagen, Central Europe’s internal politics and domestic agendas threaten to derail progress on curbing climate change.

That, in the end, may be the region’s greatest obstacle to successful sustainable development.