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Urgency of Climate Talks Seen in Coal Plants, Ice

by Associated Press

   WARSAW, POLAND --

   As politicians haggle at a U.N. climate conference in Poland over ways
   to limit global warming, the industries and machines powering our
   modern world keep spewing their pollution into the air and water.

   The fossil fuels extracted from beneath the Earth's crust -- coal, oil
   and gas -- are transformed into the carbon dioxide that is now heating
   the planet faster than scientists had expected even a few years ago.

   The devastating wildfires, droughts, floods and hurricanes of recent
   months and years are intensifying the urgency of the two-week
   conference in Katowice, which is due to end Friday.

   But not far from the conference center, plumes of smoke rise from
   Europe's largest lignite, or brown coal, power plant, in the central
   Polish town of Belchatow. Of the 50 most polluted cities in the
   European Union, 36 are in Poland.

   IN PHOTOS: The Urgency of Climate Talks