Brussels - As the European Union counts down to a crucial summit on climate change on December 11-12, member states are still at loggerheads over four main issues. Three of the arguments concern plans to bring in a system of forcing heavy industries, such as electricity generators and steel mills, to buy permits to emit carbon dioxide (CO2, the gas most linked with global warming) at auction.
The scheme is intended to make it so expensive for industry to emit CO2 that it becomes financially attractive to cut emissions.
But Poland says that that proposal would almost double the price of electricity for Polish consumers, since most of its power is generated by burning highly-polluting coal. It has therefore demanded that its generators be given a better deal.
Warsaw's stance is backed to a greater or lesser extent by fellow- EU newcomers like the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current holder of the EU's presidency, is set to debate the issue with the leaders of the nine countries in Poland on Saturday.
Debate also rages over the question of how the money made in selling CO2 emission permits should be distributed between EU states.
The original EU proposal called for 10 per cent of the revenue to be given to the bloc's poorest members, with the remainder divided evenly among all states.
At present, the poor states say the figure should be higher, while the richer members want it to be lower.
EU states are also at loggerheads over the question of how to protect their heavy industries from foreign competition out of countries which do not have emissions limits. That stand-off will become even more pointed if the world's major economies do not sign up to a binding deal on cutting emissions at a summit in Copenhagen in December 2009.
The EU's executive, the European Commission, says that industries exposed to competition should be given free emissions permits. However, commission officials say that they will only decide who gets such permits if the Copenhagen talks fail.
A number of western European states, led by Germany, argue that the commission should name the sectors which will be protected now, in order to give them the chance to plan their future business.
Finally, member states are also arguing over plans to build a new generation of power stations which pump their CO2 emissions underground - the so-called "carbon capture and storage" (CCS).
While the concept of CCS is widely supported, debate rages over the question of who should pay for the first plants: business, member states or the EU's central budget.
