Sarkozy urges Poland not to block EU climate deal

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By Gabriela Baczynska

GDANSK, Poland (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy sought to persuade Poland on Saturday to drop a threatened veto to new European Union climate goals with a compromise likely to center on coal concessions.

Sarkozy, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, met Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the start of a summit that will also include leaders of seven other ex-communist nations in an effort to thrash out a deal ahead of a December 11-12 EU summit.

Sarkozy and Tusk shook hands and embraced at the start of the meeting in the historic town hall of Gdansk.

"If we do not manage to reach an agreement at the lunch, then the night of the 11th to the 12th will be very long," an official in Sarkozy's office told reporters on Friday.

Sarkozy and Tusk, whose country relies on high-polluting coal for more than 90 percent of its electricity, were due to give a news conference at about 3 p.m. (1400 GMT) after the talks.

Poorer east European states say accepting significant caps on carbon emissions will harm their economies at a time of global financial crisis, preventing them from catching up with wealthy western Europe.

Addressing delegates assembled in Gdansk on Saturday to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Polish pro-democracy icon Lech Walesa winning the Nobel Peace Prize, Tusk called on rich EU nations to show more support for their poorer neighbors.

"It's not a coincidence that today in Gdansk we will talk to the prime ministers of other EU states and to the EU president (Sarkozy) on how to show solidarity in sharing the burden of tackling climate change ... because solidarity also means taking responsibility for the weaker," Tusk said.

Walesa headed the Solidarity trade union, which in the 1980s helped topple communism across eastern Europe.

Speaking at the same gathering, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also stressed the need to show "solidarity" with future generations in European and global climate negotiations.

VETO THREAT

Poland has threatened to veto an EU climate and energy package which would aim to slash the bloc's greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth and double the production of energy from renewable sources like the wind and sun by 2020.

Environment Minister Maciej Nowicki on Friday rejected a French compromise plan to give coal-dependent Poland more time to meet the new climate caps.

Under the plan, West European plants would be obliged to buy permits to emit every tonne of carbon dioxide they produce from burning fossil fuels from 2013, but their counterparts in Eastern Europe would have until 2016.

"This is one step in the right direction, but not enough," Nowicki told Reuters on the sidelines of December 1-12 U.N. climate talks, which Poland is hosting in the western city of Poznan.

"This is not enough time," he said of the French proposals.

"It's hard to say what will be the outcome of the European summit," he added. Poland would continue to negotiate for a fairer deal for Eastern Europe even if that meant no deal at the summit, he said.

Poland argues that it needs until 2020 to curb carbon emissions, for example by using more efficient boilers and carbon-scrubbing equipment and possibly building its first nuclear plant.

While seeking EU concessions, Nowicki as host of the U.N. talks is trying to push delegations from 187 nations toward stiffer targets to fight warming under a new pact due to be agreed at the end of 2009 in Copenhagen.

(Additional reporting by Francois Murphy in Paris; writing by Gareth Jones and Alister Doyle; editing by Richard Balmforth)

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