Monday 7th of December 2009 is the largest and most important opening UN climate change conference in history which is taking place in the Bella Center in Copenhagen.
The conference in Copenhagen is the 15^th Conference Of the Parties (COP 15) in the Framework Convention on Climate Change with diplomats from 192 nations warned that this would be the best, last chance for a deal to protect the world from calamitous global warming.

110 heads of States and governments will attend the final days of the 2 weeks conference in an attempt to seal a political global climate deal. President Barack Obama's decision to attend the end of the conference was taken as a signal that an agreement was getting closer. If a deal is agreed, the UN will aim at transferring it into a legally binding text to replace the Kyoto protocol as its regulations of emissions expires in 2012.

At stake is a deal that aims to wean the world away from fossil fuels and other pollutants to green sources of energy, and to transfer hundreds of billions of dollars from rich to poor countries every year over decades to help them adapt to climate change.

The first week of the conference will be focused on refining a complex text of a draft treaty. But major decisions will await the arrival next week of environment ministers and the heads of states in the final days of the conference.

UNEP said all countries together should emit no more than 44 billion tons of CO2 by 2020 to avoid the worst consequences of warning world. Emissions today are about 47 billion tons.

The EU is ready to raise its commitments from 20 to 30%.

South Africa announced that it is ready to cut the growth of its carbon emissions by 34% by 2020 and 42% by 2025 if it gets aid from developed countries to achieve its goals. South Africa generates all of its electricity from coal.

This undertaking is conditional on firstly, a fair, ambitious and effective agreement, and secondly the provision of support from the international community, and in particular finance, technology and support.

Developed countries should come up with more ambitious emissions reduction targets than they have already promised. They should also deliver substantial financing of developing countries in order to enable them to pursue the dual goals of both reduction of emissions and economic development.

The group of 77 is negotiating on behalf of 130 developing countries. According to observers of the negotiators, the central challenge of the UN climate change conference is bridging the gulf of different expectation between developed and developing countries.

James Hansen who heads the Naza Goddard Institute for space studies in New York said that "reducing emissions through carbon market schemes let developing countries continue more or less business as usual. No agreement is better than an agreement based on that system." He also was advocating that only a direct tax on fossil fuels as close to the source as possible would succeed in stopping the rise of emissions.