POZNAN, Poland — Several major developing countries that had long resisted making specific commitments to combat global warming are laying out concrete plans to curb their greenhouse-gas emissions at the United Nations climate conference here, a shift that could mark the most positive development in the slow-moving negotiations.
Getting the emerging economies of nations such as China, Brazil and South Africa to limit their escalating carbon footprint has been seen as crucial to the prospects for a future global climate pact.
For years these nations have argued that the industrial world must first own up to its historic responsibility and commit to binding cuts, while the United States and other developed countries have countered that they cannot afford to limit emissions until their international economic competitors do the same.
The past two weeks, however, have seen an easing of that impasse.
Brazil has pledged to cut its annual deforestation rate by 70 percent by 2017, and Mexico has vowed to bring its carbon emissions to 50 percent below their 2002 levels by 2050.
Earlier this year, South Korea pledged to set a climate target next year, and South Africa approved a plan under which its emissions would plateau between 2020 and 2025 and begin declining between 2030 and 2035. India outlined a national plan that would boost solar-power production. Even Kazakhstan moved this week to join the 1997 Kyoto Protocol with a plan to bring its greenhouse-gas output back to 1992 levels by 2012.
