With the rapidly approaching United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change just weeks away, a host of industrialized nations have begun unveiling plans for reducing global greenhouse gasses. The event is viewed as a crucial forum for the world’s nations to demonstrate a commitment to addressing global warming and its potential impact.

The United States has the highest per capita emissions in the world, with China registering the largest emissions over all. Both the U.S. and China have so far refrained from setting a specific emissions target. Many believe that if neither China nor the United States makes a commitment, the plans of lesser emitters will have little practical effect.

Todd Stern, the chief climate negotiator for the United States, said in an interview that the Obama administration was still trying to decide whether to release a proposal in the coming days. “What we are looking at is whether we feel that we can put down a number that would be provisional in effect, contingent on getting our legislation done. Our inclination is to try to do that, but we want to be smart about it.” Stern also noted that bills pending in congress involve cuts of around 17 percent in emissions by 2020, increasing to significantly deeper cuts by 2030.

United Nations officials have said they hope that the richest industrialized nations will promise to reduce their emissions to meet negotiated individual targets within a given time frame. For developing nations, the hope is that they will commit to reducing their future emissions to levels that would accumulate if they took no action. The poorest nations would receive money and assistance to adapt to the consequences of climate change.

In many ways it is easier for developing countries, such as South Korea and Brazil, to submit offers because they are under far less pressure to commit themselves formally under an agreement. The industrialized nations – those that were already industrialized when the UN framework on climate change was signed in 1992 – have the far more difficult task of committing to specific reductions.

View a previously written post by Mouli Cohen about Environment and Climate Change