EU leaders face a long day today as they seek to agree on a new decade of climate and energy policy at a summit in Brussels, with nations from Poland to Portugal threatening to block a deal.

 

If the European Union can manage an accord, including a more ambitious greenhouse gas cut, it will be the first major economic bloc to set an emissions target for 2030 and would set the tone ahead of United Nations talks next year in Paris on a global pact to manage climate change.

 

Poland, whose economy depends on highly polluting coal, has always been at the forefront of objectors, but Portugal says it too would oppose the outline deal on the table so far. No one will rule out an all-night sitting into Friday morning.

 

An EU diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said a preparatory meeting on Wednesday had been "a grand theater that showed the huge differences between countries".

 

Portugal is among the nations to have pushed for ambitious climate goals but is also holding out for a firm commitment to encourage investment in new pipeline and grid infrastructure across EU borders.

 

EU sources say Spain has a similar stance because, like Portugal, it has a surplus of energy that it cannot export to the rest of Europe because it cannot move it over the Pyrenees and then across France.

 

Beyond Poland, poorer east European states are also wary of committing to new cuts in carbon output without more compensation for efforts to modernize their economies. Since the collapse of their communist-era industries, they already emit much less pollution than in the global benchmark year of 1990.

 

 

PHOTO: Smoke billows from the chimneys of Belchatow Power Station, Europe's largest coal-fired power plant, in Belchatow October 31, 2013.

CREDIT: Kacper Pempel.