在波蘭波茲南舉行的聯合國年度氣候變遷會議於13日凌晨三點閉幕。各國政府承諾將在2009年邁入全面談判的模式，以形成針對氣候變遷的即時國際回應機制，該談判將在2009年底於哥本哈根取得共識。
與會談判者同意京都議定書氣候調適基金的董事會將擁有法律上的權力，得准許開發中國家直接取得約6,000萬美元的基金，協助它們適應全球暖化所帶來的影響。不過，到目前為止，氣候調適基金董事會仍未獲授權，無法同意或簽署類似合約，因此無法正式營運。
氣候調適基金的資金來自自發性捐款，以及京都議定書「清潔發展機制」（CDM）收入的2%。CDM允許接受議定書規範的工業國家藉由在開發中國家進行的環保計畫投資，取得排放量限制的額度。但是各國對於是否同意以透過對京都議定書之另兩項機制（共同減量和氣體排放交易）徵稅來提高氣候適應基金規模的作法，無法取得共識。
慶幸的是，在全球環境基金（Global Environment Facility，GEF）背書下的「波茲南技術移轉戰略計畫」，談判上已有所進展。
這個計畫是針對開發中國家所需要的氣候緩和（mitigation）和調適（adaptation）技術，藉由調控對此項目的私人投資，來擴大投資規模。
會議主席波蘭環境部長諾維奇（Maciej Nowicki）指出： 「我們將進入下一階段談判，包括精心規劃這項作為共識的具體談判內容。」
各國代表同意的談判內容的第一份草稿將在2009年6月，於波昂舉行的聯合國氣候變化綱要公約會議中出爐。 「除了同意2009年的工作計畫外，我們已解決了許多技術上的阻礙。在波茲南，已開發與開發中國家共同對抗氣候變遷的夥伴關係已從口號轉變為實際行動」諾維奇說。
波蘭總統卡勤斯基（Lech Kacynski）強調減輕貧窮和傳達氣候變遷情況的重要性，並特別指出歐盟身為團結一致的最佳代言人，在與氣候變遷對抗的過程中將扮演吃重的角色。
在京都議定書規範下的各國政府會議同意在2012年之後，工業國家承諾將採取量化排放限制和排放削減目標，類似他們在前5年針對2008年至2012年這段期間所作的承諾。
聯合國氣候變遷綱要公約（UFCCC）執行秘書德布爾（Yvo de Boer）說：「各國政府已表達強烈的政治訊號：即使面臨金融和經濟危機，借助精巧的財務架構與相關機構提供財務支持，這些協助開發中國家減輕和適應氣候變遷的重要資金將可流動。我們現在更清楚地瞭解我們如何詳細說明已開發國家的承諾、所需財務支援、和提供財務支援的機構，以支持哥本哈根會議的部分結論」。
德布爾指出：「茅利塔尼亞正遭受三倍以上的衝擊︰擴大中的沙漠地帶、海洋侵蝕、日益惡化的洪災。馬爾地夫群島因為海平面上升，正努力儲蓄以作遷國的準備。 美國總統當選人歐巴馬希望在2020年能回復1990年水準。 歐盟保證到2020年將堅持減少20%。到了2020年，挪威打算在減少30%，而英國已經承諾26%，瑞典也正討論減輕35%的目標。」「不論是金融危機或經濟衰退，氣候變遷將不會減緩。當世界從經濟衰退中復原時，它將無法從氣候變遷中恢復。」
德布爾建議各國政府應致力於以下事項：「利用透過氣候規範所創造的資源來形成一股自籌資金氛圍，例如藉由針對氣體排放交易或者溫室效應氣體排放量拍賣的稅捐徵收，將更進一步促進環保發展。」
大會在13日當天也發表聯合部長宣言。各國部長在宣言中承諾將從阻止森林消退開始著手，降低溫室氣體排放。特別是在已發展國家和關鍵的熱帶開發中國家，採取早期措施來降低森林消退與森林劣化，藉以降低溫室氣體排放──也就是所謂的「降低森林消退導致的碳排放」（REDD）。
「熱帶森林消退是造成全球暖化的溫室氣體散發物的主要來源，因此這方面的行動在全球氣候協議中是不可或缺的，該協議也必須在2009年底在國際間達成決議。歐洲委員會已提議創造國際金融機制來獎勵發展中國家透過減少森林消退以降低溫室氣體排放物的努力。」歐洲環境委員迪馬斯說。
在2007年因倡議氣候變遷而獲得諾貝爾和平獎的前美國副總統高爾，要求會議聚焦於降低已經開始改變地球生活條件的碳排放物。
高爾警告與會的部長們考量日益增加的證據，全球暖化將比科學家先前預估的情形更加嚴重，因此需要增強其碳排放量減低的目標。
他提倡一個限制二氧化碳水準全球新目標，限制二氧化碳在大氣中百萬分之350(350 ppm)內。目前水準已超過380ppm，相較於工業革命前的280 ppm而言。
「我要求世界公民更有力地大聲疾呼。我們需要清楚無畏地聚焦在這個危機。它將影響人類文明的生存。我們不能與實際情形進行談判。我們不能無限制地傾倒7,000萬公噸造成全球暖化的污染物進入這個24個小時圍繞地球但相對稀薄的大氣層，卻要與這個結果進行談判。」高爾說。雖然他當時不在波茲南，歐巴馬的獲勝將帶來新希望。過去8年布希政府拒絕與否定的立場將代之以這個世界第二大溫室氣體排放國更大的合作空間。
美國參議院環境暨公共工程委員會主席，加州民主黨參議員鮑克瑟（Barbara Boxer）說，「在波蘭，我的代表們告訴我在美國選舉過後，將有面對全球暖化挑戰的全新承諾。這將對地球的未來產生正面的影響，並透過對節能產業的投資來創造經濟復甦的契機。」
聯合國秘書長潘基文11日在高級別議程開幕式向各國部長演說，他要求一個嶄新的全球團結模式來處理氣候變遷和金融危機的雙重挑戰。他說，我們不能讓經濟困境來妨礙「此世代決定性挑戰」的進程。「全世界都在注意著我們，下一代也倚賴我們。我們沒有失敗的空間！」
The annual UN climate change conference ended shortly before 3:00 am today in Poznan with a commitment from governments to shift into full negotiating mode next year in order to shape a effective international response to climate change, to be agreed in Copenhagen at the end of 2009.
Negotiators agreed that the board of the Kyoto Protocol's Adaptation Fund would have the legal capacity to grant developing countries direct access to about $60 million to help them adapt to the effects of global warming.
Until now, the Adaptation Fund board could not operate because it was not allowed to approve and sign such contracts.
The Adaptation Fund is fed by voluntary contributions and a two percent share of proceeds from the protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.
The CDM allows the industrial nations governed by the protocol to receive credit towards their emissions limits by investing in green projects in developing countries.
But governments were unable to reach consensus on scaling up funding for adaptation by agreeing to put a levy on the other two Kyoto Protocol mechanisms, Joint Implementation and Emissions Trading.
Progress was made in the area of technology with the endorsement of the Global Environment Facility's "Poznan Strategic Programme on Technology Transfer."
The aim of this program is to scale up the level of investment by leveraging private investments that developing countries need for climate mitigation and adaptation technologies.
"We will now move to the next level of negotiations, which involves crafting a concrete negotiating text for the agreed outcome," said the president of the conference, Polish Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki.
Parties agreed that a first draft of the negotiating text would be available at a gathering of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bonn in June 2009.
"In addition to having agreed the work program for next year, we have cleared the decks of many technical issues," Nowicki said. "Poznan is the place where the partnership between the developing and developed world to fight climate change has shifted beyond rhetoric and turned into real action," he said.
Polish President Lech Kacynski emphasized the need to alleviate poverty and address climate change, and highlighted the EU's leading role in combating climate change as one of the best expressions of solidarity.
Governments meeting under the Kyoto Protocol agreed that commitments of industrialized countries after 2012 should take the form of quantified emission limitation and reduction targets, similar to the type of targets they have undertaken during first five-year commitment period 2008 - 2012.
"Governments have sent a strong political signal that despite the financial and economic crisis, significant funds can be mobilized for both mitigation and adaptation in developing countries with the help of a clever financial architecture and the institutions to deliver the financial support," said Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UNFCCC.
"We now have a much clearer sense of where we need to go in designing an outcome which will spell out the commitments of developed countries, the financial support required and the institutions that will deliver that support as part of the Copenhagen outcome," he said.
"Mauritania is already in the grip of a triple stranglehold: a growing desert, encroaching ocean and worsening floods," he said. "The Maldives are saving up for exodus because of rising seas."
"President-elect [Barack] Obama wants to return to 1990 levels by 2020. The EU is assuring us that it will stick to minus 20 percent by 2020. And there is more. By 2020, Norway intends to be at minus 30 percent, the United Kingdom has committed to minus 26 percent and Sweden is discussing a target of minus 35 percent," he said.
Regardless of a financial crisis or an economic down-turn, climate change will not slow down, said de Boer. "And when the world has recovered from the economic recession, it will not have recovered from climate change."
De Boer suggests that governments should aim for, "A self-financing climate compact, using resources created through climate regulations, for example through levies on emissions trading or auctioning of emissions permits can further push that green growth."
A joint ministerial declaration was launched in Poznan today to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation.
The statement commits a number of developed and key tropical developing countries to take early action to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, a process known as REDD, in the developing world.
"Tropical deforestation is a major source of the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming, so action on this is essential under the global climate agreement which the international community must conclude at the end of next year," said European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas who endorsed the declaration. "The European Commission has proposed the creation of an international financial mechanism to reward developing countries for their efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation," Dimas said.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who shared last year's Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness of climate change, urged the conference to stay focused on reducing the global carbon emissions that have already begun to change the conditions of life on Earth.
Gore warned the ministers to strengthen their carbon emission reduction targets to take account of growing evidence that global warming will strike harder and sooner than scientists had previously thought.
He called for a new global goal of limiting carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm) - current levels are already over 380ppm, up from 280ppm before the Industrial Revolution.
"I call on the people of the world to speak up more forcefully," Gore said. "We need to focus clearly and unblinkingly on this crisis rather than spending so much time on OJ Simpson, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith."
This challenge "affects the survival of human civilization," Gore said.
"We cannot negotiate with the facts, we cannot negotiate with the truth about our situation, we cannot negotiate with the consequences of unrestrained dumping of 70 million tons of global warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet every 24 hours," he said.
While he was not in Poznan, the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States brought hope that the U.S. position of denial and delay over the past eight years of the Bush administraton would soon give way to greater cooperation from the world's second largest greenhouse gas emitter.
U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, said, "My representatives in Poland tell me that there is a new commitment to address the challenge of global warming after the U.S. election. This is very positive for the future of the planet and an opportunity to spur economic recovery with the investment in clean energy and green jobs."
Addressing the ministers gathered for the start of the high-level session on Thursday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for renewed global solidarity to tackle the twin challenges of climate change and the financial crisis.
The world cannot afford to let economic woes hinder progress on "the defining challenge of our era," said Ban. "The world is watching us. The next generation is counting on us. We must not fail."
