The 14th Conference of the Parties (COP14) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will open Monday in the central Polish city of Poznan.
The two-week conference is expected to draw 8,000 participants from more than 190 governments and non-governmental institutions.
The conference is aimed at mapping out a blueprint for parties to negotiate in 2009 in a bid to clinch a deal in Copenhagen to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and expires in 2012.
Under the Protocol, 37 nations, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to market economy, have legally binding greenhouse gas emission limits and reduction commitments of at least 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
The conference of the parties, as the most prestigious forum of political discussion in the scope of climate protection, attracts the attention of the entire world during its annual sessions.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, adopted at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and coming into force two years later, is one of the most important environmental agreements to lay down a framework for international actions to address global climate warming.
Thanks to negotiations following the adoption of the UNFCCC, political leaders endorsed the first legally binding document in regard to greenhouse gas emission control, the Kyoto Protocol, to ensure the implementation of the provisions of the Convention.
The debates under the convention have also covered such important issues as the mechanisms to provide financial support for developing countries, technology transfer and international carbon dioxide emissions trading.